Friday News: “Everybody Hates the Trump Tax Plan”; “The Bipartisan Pastime of Harassing Women”; Wait, What? Sexual Predator Trump Is Tweeting About Franken???

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Friday, November 17.

• After clearing House, GOP tax plan faces obstacles in Senate (This thing absolutely should not pass.)
• And the biggest loser in the GOP’s tax plan is… humans
• A Tax-Cut Bill to Make Scrooge McDuck Proud
• Krugman: Everybody Hates the Trump Tax Plan
• The House Just Voted to Bankrupt Graduate Students
• Bill Signals Top Tax Priority of G.O.P.: Help Corporations (To quote Mitt Romney, “corporations are people, my friend.” LOL)
• Who Stands to Gain From an Estate Tax Rollback? (“Scarcely 5,000 estates a year fall under the tax, but those seeking to reduce or eliminate it have outsize influence.” Yep, 5,000 estates in a country of 300+ million people.)
• The GOP tax plan is moving forward. It’s a big scam on Trump’s base.
• If The GOP Wants A More Popular Tax Plan, Minor Tweaks Won’t Be Enough
• House Republicans Just Passed a Huge Tax Cut for the Rich (“Nearly half of the benefits in the bill go to the top 1 percent.” The exactly opposite of what we want and need to be doing.)
• The world’s strongest conservation law is under attack. It needs to be fixed instead.
• The Russia investigation’s spectacular accumulation of lies
• Al Franken is just the start of Congress’s reckoning with sexual harassment
• The Democrats Really Can Win the House in 2018
• Al Franken, Disappointment
• Hillary Clinton on Trump’s Election: “There Are Lots of Questions About Its Legitimacy” (“In an exclusive interview with Mother Jones, Clinton says Russian interference and GOP voter suppression efforts may have cost her the presidency.”)
• Fox News Poll: Jones leads Moore by 8 points in Alabama Senate race
• Keystone Pipeline leaks 210,000 gallons of oil in South Dakota (Just a reminder that the last time there was a massive solar spill, it was called a beautiful, sunny day!)
• Political Corruption Enters a New Golden Age (“One could date the trend inside the U.S. to June 2016, when the Supreme Court overturned the corruption conviction of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. It’s not that the justices found that McDonnell hadn’t done the things for which he was convicted; it’s that they decided that his favors on behalf of a friend who gave him more than $175,000 in gifts didn’t constitute legal corruption.” That decision was an absolute travesty.)
• 14 reasons why Trump’s tweets on Al Franken cannot be ignored (“Getting elected president doesn’t make sexual assault allegations any less relevant” Bottom line: if Franken must resign, then Trump must resign as well – for much worse behavior, actually.)
• At conservative conference, Neil Gorsuch cracks joke about frozen trucker nearly left to die (“Hilarious!” Great Supreme Court Justice, huh? Of course, Republicans stole this seat, don’t forget, so Gorsuch is an illegitimate Supreme Court Justice…)
• Sarah Sanders refuses to rule out that Trump would still vote for alleged child molester
• How Donald Trump’s campaign was motivated by revenge — and how it still impacts his governing today
• Bill McKibben on why we should be worried about media consolidation and Facebook (“Clear Channel, now known as iHeartMedia, is the largest operator of radio stations in the U.S., with more than 850 in its control. Meanwhile, in the TV market, Sinclair Broadcast Group owns more stations than any company in the U.S. and is poised to acquire many more, which would enable it to squelch local voices and spread its right-wing messaging to the biggest media markets in the country.”)
• 
  The NRA is smaller than you’d think – so why does it wield such influence? (“Compared with others, the 145-year-old lobby group isn’t a vast spender – but it has the power to mobilize a grassroots support and make Washington listen”)
• The Latest Republican Gambit to Get Rid of Roy Moore Is Nakedly Unconstitutional (“Hold the election and elect Doug Jones. It’s the only way.”)
• Franken releases new statement, calls for ethics investigation of himself
• Alabama GOP rebuffs pressure to abandon Roy Moore
• Al Franken should be investigated, and he should be held accountable (“And so should Donald Trump.”)
• “The fish rots from the head”: a historian on the unique corruption of Trump’s White House (“Politicians lie, but this is different.”)
• How NPR became a public case study of workplace sexual harassment
• Sen. Mark Warner, Who Is Investigating Trump-Russia, Feels Like He’s Living in a Spy Novel
• Virginia Board of Education changes accreditation, graduation requirements (“If it stands, Virginia would join New York as the only other state to link with RGGI via executive action and not legislative approval…Proponents also expect the rule to deliver a boost for renewable energy and energy efficiency in the state.”)
• Virginia State Air Pollution Control Board approves draft rule that would regulate power plant carbon emissions
• Atlantic Coast Pipeline set to seize private property for 600-mile project
• She argued with liberals on Rep. Dave Brat’s Facebook page. Then they found out he was paying her. (“Republican U.S. Rep. Dave Brat’s Facebook page is a hub of activity, and members of the Liberal Women of Chesterfield County are among the major players, regularly sharing their thoughts.”)
• Did Gillespie ads turn off African American voters in Virginia?
• Gov.-elect Northam makes first cabinet picks
• Did Northam’s Office Try to Hide the Dominion Executives and Lobbyists Sitting on His Transition Team? (“…a closer look at the people on the transition team reveals that some have been presented in a selective way that fails to mention their various affiliations with Dominion.” Carlos Brown is “Vice President and General Counsel at Dominion Energy.” Eva Hardy “worked as a longtime Dominion executive, most recently as a vice president. Though not currently an official company executive, Dominion still retains Hardy as a lobbyist.””Veteran Dominion lobbyist William (Bill) Murray, the company’s managing director of public policy, is presented as ‘Member, State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.'” “Still more Dominion-linked lobbyists appear on the list. They include Edward Mullen from the firm Reed Smith, and L. F. Payne from McGuireWoods, Dominion’s longtime lobbying outfit in Washington DC. Mark Bowles, a vice president at McGuireWoods who is not presently registered as a Dominion lobbyist, is also on the transition team.”))
• Virginia transportation officials plead guilty in bribery, drug schemes
• Judge won’t impose deadline in gas pipeline suit
• McAuliffe transportation secretary moving to top finance job under Northam
• Editorial: The Democrats’ dubious case in Stafford (Perhaps, perhaps not, but this editorial is by the Republican Times-Disgrace, so…)
• Editorial: A letter to new legislators
• D.C.-area forecast: Cool breezes today, warmer air tomorrow, then chilly and windy again by Sunday