Sunday News: “Stable Genius” “Trump and the Rule of Law”; “2018 General Assembly forecast: frigid, tense, with a chance of scuffles”

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Sunday, January 7.

• Trump Says NYT Story On Sessions Recusal Was ‘Off’ But Won’t Elaborate (Of course he won’t.)
• Is President Trump Mentally Ill? It Doesn’t Matter (“The entire debate over whether Trump is ‘mentally ill’ is simply a diversion, premised on the idea that we need either permission or dictation to say he is not able to safely or competently fulfill the job of President. We don’t. The observed behavior is really all that is necessary and all that matters. It’s very clear.”)
• Trump tweets that he’s a genius and “a very stable genius at that!” (“The president lashed out Saturday morning after Fox News talks about his mental state.”)
• Trump boasts that he’s a ‘very stable genius’ amid questions over his mental fitness
• The ‘stable genius’ isn’t even functioning as president
• Trump’s extraordinary tweetstorms mark an unsettling start to 2018 (“In a White House marked by a string of high-level comings and goings, there remains but one constant. That is the disorder at the center, perpetrated by a president who continues to break the norms of his office. It’s why this year could eclipse 2017 for political turbulence.”)
• Here are the people closest to Trump who might doubt his mental fitness
• The psychiatrist who briefed Congress on Trump’s mental state: this is “an emergency” (“The case for evaluating the president’s mental capacity — by force if necessary.”)
• Companies that announced big bonuses after GOP tax cut are now laying off their workers (“Nice ‘trickle-down economics’ you’ve got there.” It never works.)
• Bannon Was Reportedly Minutes Away From Blasting Wolff Before Trump Attacked Him
• McConnell dances on Bannon’s grave (“But with nasty Republican primaries on the horizon, the Senate majority leader is hardly in the clear.”)
• The 2018 midterms are fast approaching. First up: Primary fights for both parties’ future.
• How the U.S. and North Korea could stumble into World War III (“U.S. military planners are increasingly concerned that tensions on the Korean peninsula could unintentionally trigger a wider war as Trump and Kim Jong Un hurl unusually personal attacks online.” )
• Official who improperly helped Redskins owner cut down trees picked as National Park Service deputy director (Aside from being a reminder about the low character of Dan Snyder, this story is almost beyond parody in every other way.)
• More than $100K raised for Moore accuser whose home was destroyed in suspicious fire
• Sessions under fire from all sides (It couldn’t happen to a nicer or better guy! LOL)
• How Trump Is Making Us Rethink American Exceptionalism (“This year has shown that the U.S. is far from immune to the forces shaping the rest of the world.” I mean, electing Trump does show that a significant percentage of our electorate is “exceptional” – exceptionally bigoted, stupid, nasty and crazy that is.)
• The Interior Department Has Cleared the Way for Energy Developers to Destroy Natural Habitats (“And opened the door for lots of lawsuits.”)
• The GOP’s Dilemma: Avoiding Disaster in Midterms Will Just Embolden Trump to Run Again
• Trump on Russia Investigation: I Do Things ‘100 Percent Proper’ (Uh…no.)
• Donald Trump and the Rule of Law (“Trump’s contempt for the rule of law infects his entire Administration, as illustrated by Sessions’s newly announced guidance on marijuana policy. Under President Barack Obama, the Department of Justice allowed states to come up with their own policies on pot, which Washington and Colorado legalized, to benign effect.”)
• Trump Says He’s a ‘Stable Genius,’ Would Like Stronger Libel Laws
• Booked! Donald Trump, staffers who cried Wolff and a week of fire and fury (“When the Guardian published extracts of Fire and Fury, Washington was rocked. Now many are questioning the president’s chances of staying in the job”)
• Voters Used To See Moderation In Trump. Not Anymore.
• Michael Wolff Reflects on a Wild Week and Trump’s Anger: “I Have No Side Here”
• Breitbart editor fires back at Trump over Bannon attack: ‘Outrageous’
• Pro-Kremlin Twitter Trolls Take Aim at Robert Mueller
• Republican control won’t mean business as usual as transformed House convenes (“The House of Delegates will convene on Wednesday with a shaky, razor-thin Republican majority to elect a long-designated new speaker of the House to preside over a chamber transformed by a Democratic electoral tidal wave.”)
• Todd P. Haymore column: A review of Gov. McAuliffe’s efforts to build a new Virginia economy
• COLUMN: 2018 General Assembly forecast: frigid, tense, with a chance of scuffles (“The verbal explosions may be limited to the opening days of the 2018 General Assembly session, but the hard feelings and recriminations could last for weeks, and maybe for years…Republican leaders have announced they intend to disregard the process underway in the two disputed House districts, and proceed as though they still hold the majority. So on the legislature’s opening day Wednesday, Republican delegates will choose a Republican speaker who will stack House committees to the Republicans’ advantage and thereby maintain GOP control of the House.”)
• Schapiro: At the state Capitol, who has the Biggest Button? (“What remains of [Kirk Cox’s GOP] caucus is heavily rural, robustly conservative and Trump-friendly. Republican hyperpartisan gerrymandering, guided, in part, by Cox, has extended outsized influence to narrow bands of voters. They will demand GOP delegates not only hold accountable Northam but Republicans who betray party orthodoxy.”)
• Speaker Howell making ‘tremendous progress’ in recuperating from heart surgery, spokesman says
• Editorial: A shift in tone at the General Assembly
• Flurry of bills precede legislators as Virginia General Assembly convenes Wednesday for 60-day session (Yep, and unlike the corporate media for the most part, we’ve been keeping a close eye on them here at Blue Virginia.)
• Editorial: McAuliffe’s solid work for all Virginians (“McAuliffe is likely to be remembered as transactional governor, someone who served as a trustworthy steward of his office, who effectively promoted the Virginia economy and who kept a steady hand on the tiller…His reputation was as a businessman, an entrepreneur, a deal-maker. And he leveraged those skills toward developing a stronger and more diverse Virginia economy, one less reliant on Washington’s defense budget and more competitive in the nation and around the world.”)
• EDITORIAL: State Elections Board ignored warnings (“We are now just two years away from the 2020 census, and the results of the 2010 census in Virginia are still in dispute. In this highly-charged partisan environment, the State Board of Elections’ failure to heed multiple warnings and make sure that Fredericksburg voters were assigned to the correct legislative districts is inexcusable.”)
• 6th District Chooses Convention to Nominate Congressional Candidate (“…a candidate — for Congress, mind you — can theoretically get nominated with a low of 15%-20% of the vote. This is an absolute nightmare. RPV State Central should move to be involved immediately.” Yep, this is why we need some form of ranked or range voting for multi-candidate primaries as well.)
• GOP chooses convention to pick 6th District candidate, haggles over voting rules (“…in an unusual move, members of the 6th District GOP Committee elected to hold a convention in which delegates will cast only one vote to select their congressional candidates as opposed to typical conventions, which can be multi-ballot affairs.”)
• Editorial: An economic experiment(“In any case, when the regional GO Virginia council convenes Friday, it will be focused on just one thing: How can we get more jobs that pay like AEP, Power School and Eldor?”)
• CBJ: With project since inception, pipeline architects work through obstacles, criticism
• Only a little warmer today, but temperatures headed in the right direction (“We’re in the 20s today, 30s tomorrow, 40s midweek, with 50s in the forecast by Thursday.”)