Thursday News: Zuckerberg’s “Really Sorry” Is “Totally Inadequate”; “Why Is Trump So Afraid of Russia?”; Virginia Republicans “divided, impassioned, and fearful”

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Thursday, March 22.

• Behind the scenes: Fox News analyst’s stunning note hit network ‘like a bombshell’
• In case of dumb Trump tweet on climate change and snow storms, read this (“Global warming is heating the ocean waters that make nor’easters more intense.”)
• Never mind the indictments and poisonings, Trump just wants to ‘get along’ with Putin (“His latest tweets put him at odds with his own advisers.”)
• The 2,232 page omnibus spending bill, explained in less than 1000 words (“The Bad: The massive spending bill is does not have any significant new restrictions on gun purchases — something student activists from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have explicitly called for.”)
• Why Is Trump So Afraid of Russia? (“Nary a bad word about Vladimir Putin can the U.S. president find.” I’d bet a lot of money the Russians have seriously compromising material on Trump.)
• Trump Told Putin He’d Meet With Him Soon, Forgot to Inform White House
• What We Know About Austin Bomber Mark Conditt (“The Austin American-Statesman reports that Conditt wrote about his opposition to gay marriage and abortion, and his support for the death penalty. He also advocated for the abolishment of sex-offender registries…It’s not clear whether Conditt’s political views, which he described as conservative, motivated the bombings”)
• Yes, we should be outraged about Facebook
• Were the Austin bombings terrorism? In the heart of Texas, it sure feels that way
• Texas serial bomber made video confession before blowing himself up: police (“Conditt, who was home-schooled, described himself as a conservative but said he was not politically inclined, according to blog posts he wrote as part of a U.S. politics class at Austin Community College.”)
• Cambridge Analytica boss went from ‘aromatics’ to psyops to Trump’s campaign (“While Alexander Nix draws headlines for his role in the Trump 2016 digital operation, his colorful business partner Nigel Oakes may be an equally important figure.”)
• Kelly furious over Putin ‘DO NOT CONGRATULATE’ leak (“Other GOP officials have expressed alarm that such a closely guarded detail found its way into media accounts.”)
• Zuckerberg’s Plan to Fix Facebook Is Sensible, Comforting, and Totally Inadequate (“The Cambridge Analytica story, in this view, is just the fuse to a powder keg of discontentment with the company’s central project of mining users’ personal data to help advertisers target them. If that’s the case, then what Zuckerberg has just announced is a plan to disable the fuse after the bomb has already gone off.”)
• Mark Zuckerberg says he’s ‘open’ to testifying to Congress, fixes will cost ‘many millions’ and he ‘feels really bad’
• Who’s Worse — Trump Lawyers or Their Client?
• What Trump and Putin Have in Common (“Bullies like Trump and Putin are relentless. They will keep driving through red lights, smirking all the way, as long as we let them. But American voters can stop Trump, and America and its allies can stop Putin — if they act together.”)
• Congressional negotiators reach deal on $1.3 trillion spending bill (“The legislation would make good on President Trump’s promises to increase military funding while blocking much of his immigration agenda. The release of the 2,000-plus-page bill Wednesday evening touched off a legislative sprint as lawmakers try to pass it before Friday night, the deadline to avoid a government shutdown.”)
• Dem senator responds to Zuckerberg: ‘You need to come’ testify
• What Would Regulating Facebook Look Like?
• Mark Zuckerberg: ‘I Actually Am Not Sure We Shouldn’t Be Regulated’
• Cambridge Analytica and Our Lives Inside the Surveillance Machine
• House leaders’ biggest 2018 fear: The lazy Republican (“GOP members who haven’t had a tough race in years are being warned to start running scared.”)
• Unarmed black man shot to death in own backyard after police mistake cell phone for weapon (Totally f’ed up.)
• 2020 Dems compete for top campaign operatives
• GOP pushes to change Senate rules for Trump (The exact opposite of what the Senate should be doing.)
• Director at pro-Trump group boasted of asking airline passengers with “a rag” on their heads if they were terrorists (“America First Policies’ Carl Higbie: ‘You put a rag on your head, it’s my right to be suspicious'” Bigots, of course.)
• Karen McDougal is the woman with the best chance of bringing down Trump (“Stormy Daniels is in the headlines, but Karen McDougal is a bigger problem for Trump.”)
• 60 Minutes interview with Stormy Daniels to be broadcast Sunday
• 20,000 Republicans just voted for an actual Nazi (“Illinois Republicans nominated Arthur Jones for a U.S. House seat.” These people will literally vote for ANYONE with an “R” by their name. Sick.)
• Cambridge Analytica sets quandary for right: hate Facebook, love Trump (“The scandal of the data mining company produced complicated feelings on the right as hatred of big tech companies vied with sensitivity about Trump’s victory”)
• Which U.S. House Race Is The Best 2018 Bellwether? (” I chose Virginia’s 10th Congressional District, currently held by Republican Barbara Comstock. This is somewhat similar to Mimi Walters and to the broader theme that Republicans might have trouble in districts near big cities (Comstock represents a suburban area near Washington, D.C., that is full of federal workers.) She won by 6 percentage points in 2016, but Trump lost there by 10.”)
• It’s official: Republican Rick Saccone concedes to Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania special election
• 5th District Democratic hopefuls gather at forum (“Hosted by the Danville Democrat[ic] Committee, Leslie Cockburn, Ben Collup, Roger Dean Huffstetler and Andrew Sneathern talked to more than 100 voters at Danville Community College.”)
• A tale of two forums: What the primary debates tell us about politics in Virginia (“The Republicans are divided, impassioned, and fearful”)
• Census data: Growth in northern Virginia, decline in south
• Gov. Ralph Northam introduces new state budget with Medicaid expansion and a twist: He wants extra revenue saved, not spent
• Va. Gov. Ralph Northam proposes new budget. And it looks really familiar. (“The governor reverts to ‘straight’ Medicaid expansion as the legislature prepares to resume budget battle.”)
• CASEY: Is Goodlatte providing cover for President Donald Trump?
• Former Gov. Douglas Wilder sues dean of school bearing his name claiming assistant was harassed
• Bowser proposes tax increases, including on Lyft and Uber rides, to pay for Metro (And if we didn’t have godawful legislators like anti-tax, anti-transit Republican Tim Hugo, maybe we could do things the right way as well. But noooooooo.)
• Fairfax Co. pushes for changes to landmark Va. Metro funding deal (Republican John Cook rips Republican Tim Hugo’s Metro funding deal: “If you had sat down in January and said, ‘Let’s write a bill that meets Metro’s needs but does it in the way that hurts local government in Northern Virginia the most and does the absolute minimum from the state,’ you would come up with something very similar to what’s on his desk now”)
• Microsoft adds 315 megawatts of new solar power in Virginia in largest corporate solar agreement in the United States (“Microsoft Corp. announced on Wednesday the purchase of 315 MW of energy from Pleinmont I and II, two new solar projects in the commonwealth of Virginia. This represents the single largest corporate purchase of solar energy ever in the United States. This will enable Microsoft to make significant progress toward its goal of reaching 60 percent by early 2020. The Pleinmont projects are part of a larger 500-MW solar development, owned and operated by sPower, an AES and AIMCo company.”)
• Morgan, Rust, and May column: The House budget is a solid fiscal plan
• Spring snowfall causes power outages, hazardous roads
• Editorial: Time to renegotiate the bum deal with the Redskins (The deal should be that Dan Snyder pays every penny, the city pays zero.)
• Slavery reparations, memorials discussed at UVA conference
• Hampton Roads Regional Jail’s superintendent steps down
• March for Our Lives event planned for this weekend in downtown Norfolk
• Residents participate in both sides of gun debate with events this weekend
• Norfolk council members blame everybody but themselves on Meeks’ waste plant
• Election of Richmond Democratic Party leaders thrown out following complaints (“James “J.J.” Minor’s election to a fifth term as the leader of the Richmond arm of the state Democratic Party was thrown out last week after complaints of a flawed process and voter intimidation.” This crap should not acceptable in the Democratic Party. At all.)
• Breezy and cold through Friday; close call on snow Saturday night