Wednesday News: “Jeff Sessions Doesn’t Recall”; “GOP’s internal war over Roy Moore”; Virginia Moves Towards Cap-and-Trade

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, November 15. Oh, and definitely check out the video, in which Jeff Sessions really, really doesn’t “recall” stuff he absolutely should recall. What a joke.

• Zimbabwe’s Military, in Apparent Takeover, Says It Has Custody of Mugabe
• Australians decisively support same-sex marriage
• Senate GOP changes tax bill to add Obamacare mandate repeal, make individual income cuts expire (Totally unacceptable.)
• Attorney General Jeff Sessions Doesn’t Recall (“Mr. Sessions forgot a lot of things most people would remember.”)
• What Jeff Sessions’s Hearing Proved (“The Republicans will never do anything about Russia.”)
• Jeff Sessions Now Has Given Six Different Stories About Russia. Six!)
• How much sway does Fox News have over the Justice Department? (It should have exactly ZERO.)
• ‘It’s grotesque’: Justice Dept. veterans recoil at idea of another special counsel (“Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s public suggestion of a special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton has alarmed current and former Justice officials who fear it would further politicize the agency. ‘I think the vast majority of people at DOJ would be completely disgusted and demoralized by it,’ one former deputy special counsel said.”)
• Key takeaways from Sessions’s memory-lapse-filled hearing
• There are no grounds for a special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton (“Jeff Sessions pushed back Tuesday against calls to go after Clinton, but that doesn’t mean pressure on his agency has gone away.” Absolutely unacceptable to even consider this un-American, anti-rule-of-law, tinpot dictator-style witch hunt.)
• Boxed In by His Boss: Sessions Has a Clinton Dilemma
• GOP’s internal war over Roy Moore: It’s only going to escalate (“Disgraced former judge shows no signs of quitting amid deepening scandal — but the GOP is desperate to stop him”)
• Would Republicans Be Better Off If The Democrat Won In Alabama?
• We Overlooked Another Mass Shooting Today (“A day in the year 2017.”)
• Black Voters, Blue Wave (“How black voters can propel Democrats to big wins across the country.”)
• GOP targets health mandate in tax reform
• Republicans Want to Let the Koch Brothers’ Political Donations Tax Deductible (“The House tax bill could lead to $2 billion per year in tax-free dark money.”)
• Poll: 40 percent of voters believe Trump is fit to be president, a new low
• US military leaders would reject illegal order for nuclear strike, senators told (“As senators raise concerns about ‘unstable’ Donald Trump’s decision-making, former commander says military is ‘not obligated to follow illegal orders’”)
• RNC cuts off Moore (“The national party pulls out of a fundraising pact with the Alabama candidate, further isolating him.”)
• Donald Trump Jr.’s incredible history of dumb decisions (“The president’s eldest son didn’t fall far from the tree.” This family is something else…and not in a good way.)
• Apologies to Eric, But There’s a New Dumbest Trump (“Junior got tangled up with Julian Assange, and now he’s caught up in a whole lot more.”)
• Behold the wonders of Rep. Louie Gohmert’s conspiracy chart (“This was actually held up in a congressional hearing.”)
• Fox News’ Shepherd Smith debunks his network’s Hillary Clinton ‘scandal’ story, infuriates viewers (“Various fact-checkers, including The Washington Post’s, have already dismantled the underpinnings of these accusations. No one expected a similar debunking from Fox.” Because Fox isn’t news, it’s a right-wing propaganda network.)
• Real lessons of Virginia: Democrats aren’t in disarray, they’re disadvantaged (“The gap between votes and legislative seats in Virginia serves as a cautionary reminder: Democrats face daunting structural obstacles in turning around Republican majorities in Congress and in the numerous state legislatures they lost during Barack Obama’s eight years in office. “)
• An Alabama Robocall Invokes Ugly Tropes (“A recording falsely claiming to be from a Washington Post reporter named Lenny Bernstein seeks to fan resentment of the press among Roy Moore supporters.”)
• Trump’s extraordinary 12-day adulation tour (“Long on flattery, short on strategy.”)
• Christians: Our silence on Roy Moore isn’t enough (“It’s a travesty that he and his ilk have hijacked ‘conservative Christianity.'”)
• Trump faces wrenching call on Moore (“The president must decide whether to pressure the Alabama candidate to drop out — and possibly prod Jeff Sessions to take back his old seat.”)
• Editorial in 3 Alabama newspapers blasts Moore as ‘unfit for public office’
• Donald Trump’s Trump, Jr., Problem
• Hey, Mark Zuckerberg: My Democracy Isn’t Your Laboratory (“The world’s most powerful social media company thinks it can experiment on whomever and whatever it wants.”)
• Can Carbon-Dioxide Removal Save the World? (Let’s start by slashing CO2 emissions as fast as possible, also by planting billions of trees.)
• Gov. McAuliffe named ‘Public Official of the Year’ among U.S. governors
• This Democrat Is About To Give Payday Lenders A Big Boost (“A bill from Sen. Mark Warner envisions a future when anyone could get a predatory loan at 380 percent interest.” Absolutely unacceptable.)
• An election lawsuit in Virginia could give a huge win to Democrats (“The NAACP wants to halt certification on behalf of voters who they claim were given misleading provisional ballots..The statement claimed that poll workers provided voters who needed to use provisional ballots with contradictory information about how and when they could return to provide what the state government needed from them.”)
• Dominion Virginia to pursue relicensing of North Anna nuke (I support relicensing. I think building new nuclear power plants is a huge waste of money, which should go into energy efficiency, solar and wind instead.)
• At hearing on sexual harassment in Congress, Virginia Rep. Comstock tells story of sitting member exposing himself to staffer
• Virginia Launches Plan to Join East Coast Carbon Market, Cut Emissions 30% (“The cap-and-trade plan would target the coal state’s power plant emissions. With a Democrat winning the governor’s race, it’s expected to move forward.”)
• Virginia air board to vote on draft of landmark state carbon regulation Thursday (“If adopted, the proposed rule, which seeks to establish emissions limits and a carbon trading program for power plants above 25 megawatts in capacity beginning in 2020, will head out for a 60-day public comment period…The budget then declines by 3 percent each year between 2020 and 2030, forcing the power plants to reduce the emissions of CO2, which a scientific consensus has concluded is driving global warming, or buy more allowances.”)
• Landes will not seek Goodlatte’s congressional seat
• Editorial: Turnout was high but not the highest (“In last Tuesday’s election, 47 percent of Virginia voters cast ballots. That’s up from 2013, when 43 percent voted.” A bit better, but still pathetic.)
• Republicans fear Gov.-elect Ralph Northam will try to pluck from the legislature to flip control (“Having all but erased a House Republican majority that Senate GOP majority leader Tommy Norment of James City County had confidently declared more than a year earlier would not tip Democratic in ‘our lifetimes,’ Democrats suddenly required more room to accommodate the donors, campaign operatives, party leaders, and lobbyists eager for a peek at the new faces filling out a caucus that had been outnumbered 2 to 1.”)
• Schapiro: Strangers in a strange land
• Rocked by elections, Virginia House committee begins budget retreat in Portsmouth
• Much of Virginia likes LaHood plan to replace Metro board, but D.C. and Md. have concerns, conditions (“Rep. Barbara Comstock said she is close to filing a bill to overhaul governance and increase federal funding.”)
• Fix Metro now. Or face the consequences.
• Judge throws out lawsuit in key Virginia House race (“Republican’s lead shrinks to 82 votes after Stafford tallies provisional ballots.”)
• At UVa, Clinton encourages women to stand together
• Danica Roem Is Really, Really Boring (“This approach wouldn’t be praiseworthy if Roem seemed in any way to be hiding a part of herself or ashamed of it. But that’s not the case at all.”)
• Salem urges state to set conditions on Mountain Valley Pipeline impact
• Critics of pipeline approval seek new hearing on FERC decision (“Some 22 petitioners — including landowners whose property the pipeline would dissect, counties it would cross and conservation groups who say it would leave a trail of environmental damage — filed documents Monday asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to order a rehearing of its Oct. 13 decision.”)
• Lone absentee ballot remains rejected for 94th District race
• About those ballots a recount reviews
• After additional votes counted, Dudenhefer, Thomas still come out on top in Stafford election
• Danica Roem’s win proves it: We don’t need to restrict campaign contributions (Wait, what? Even Danica Roem herself believes we need to restrict campaign contributions, for instance from for-profit companies with business before the state.)
• Henrico supervisor Courtney Lynch sworn in; her win gave Democrats control of Board of Supervisors for first time in decades
• Monument Avenue Commission maps next steps for gathering feedback on Confederate statues
• D.C.-area forecast: Cool again today, briefly warmer tomorrow; Saturday showers?