Wednesday News: So Much for N. Korea Summit?; Historic Win for Stacey Abrams in GA; RIP Philip Roth; Judge Rules for Gavin Grimm

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, May 23.

• Trump says ‘very substantial chance’ North Korea summit could be delayed
• Republicans, no Democrats, invited to see documents on U.S. election probe (Banana Republicans.)
• 3 winners and 3 losers from primaries in Georgia, Texas, Kentucky, and Arkansas (“A good night for establishmentarians and Medicaid expansion.”)
• Trump Says North Korea Summit Meeting May Be Delayed
• Republicans think Trump is losing trade war
• The Trump-Kim Summit Will Happen Soon or Later or Never (“South Korea’s president comes to Washington to prop up diplomacy with North Korea.”)
• Krugman: Why a Trade War With China Isn’t ‘Easy to Win’
• Top takeaways from Tuesday’s historic primary night (“Democratic women, led by Stacey Abrams in Georgia, keep racking up wins in 2018.”)
• Democratic voters reject tradition, choosing outsiders in their quest to regain power (“For Democrats, the results marked a reassertion of the party’s fealty to the rising American electorate — unmarried, young and racially diverse voters.”)
• Ryan losing grip on House GOP conference as midterms approach
• Trump’s trade war with China is over for now. China won. (“Trump has won minor short-term changes, while China has achieved important objectives, both tangible and intangible.”)
• Stacey Abrams Just Made History (“The Georgia Democrat became the first black woman to win a major party’s gubernatorial nomination.”)
• Philip Roth, the Seminal American Novelist, Has Died at Eighty-Five
• Acclaimed writer [Philip Roth] seen as ‘the voice of his generation’ dies at 85 (“Books such as ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’ and ‘Goodbye, Columbus’ established him as a premier chronicler of sex, desire and Jewish angst. He won the Pulitzer Prize for ‘American Pastoral.'”)
• GOP dissidents on cusp of forcing immigration votes (“If all 193 Democrats sign the petition, as they are expected to, the centrists would need only five more Republican signatures for the petition to succeed.”)
• Good Job Destroying Wild Plants and Animals, Humans. Only 17 Percent Left to Go! (“What’s wrong with us?” Our species is a disaster.)
• Trump demands housecleaning on White House communications team (“Chief of staff John Kelly has signed off on a plan to dismiss midlevel and junior aides in an effort to limit leaks.”)
• Congress Approves First Big Rollback of Dodd-Frank Law (“The bipartisan legislation will now head to President Trump, leaving fewer than 10 big banks subject to stricter post-crisis oversight.”)
• Our Revolution keeps consultant who made anti-immigrant comments (Completely unacceptable.)
• Cohen’s Business Ally to Work With Officials in Plea Deal
• The Latest: EPA bars AP, CNN from summit on contaminants (Why is scumbag Pruitt still there???)
• Ex-Trump campaign chief seeks to suppress evidence seized by FBI
• Trump’s Cabinet Is Weaponizing Abject Ignorance (“Or, in Scott Pruitt’s case, they’ve weaponized armed security.”)
• Giuliani accidentally reveals the real purpose of Trump’s extraordinary Oval Office meeting (“We can’t let our guy go in and be questioned without knowing this.”)
• Education Secretary Betsy DeVos fails to answer basic questions on education (Great job by Rep. Bobby Scott in making DeVos look like the imbecile she is.)
• James Clapper tells Rachel Maddow the president is illegitimate: ‘Trump would not be president if not for’ Russia (Also, he lost the popular vote by 3 million.)
• Scott Pruitt’s EPA blacklists reporters from summit on toxic water contaminants, forcibly removes reporter from the building (“AP, CNN, and E&E News were all prevented from attending”)
• There’s a sinkhole on the White House lawn. And it’s growing. (Very appropriate, given the “sinkhole” that is the Trump administration.)
• House conservatives demand an investigation — of Hillary Clinton (Vote out every one of these authoritarian assholes.)
• House GOP Factions Playing Chicken With Immigration, Farm Bill
• Paul Ryan: ‘Oversight of the Executive Branch’ Means Kneecapping Mueller
• Report: Michael Cohen’s Business Partner Cooperating With Prosecutors (“Evgeny Freidman has been Cohen’s partner in the taxi business for years.)
• Premature Birth Rates Drop in California After Coal and Oil Plants Shut Down
• Trump’s way of handling Chinese telecom company ZTE is ‘very dangerous,’ says Sen. Mark Warner (“This is a company that poses a national security threat”)
• Column: Springtime candidate selections ratchet up polarization in Virginia (What an idiotic headline and weird article; this has nothing to do with “polarization” or “partisanship,” this has to do with a massive decline in standards of behavior and shift to the extreme right in the Republican Party, with Corey Stewart being Exhibit A, but also many of their Congressional primaries as well.)
• Northam wants strategic plan to boost offshore wind (Recommendation #1: get rid of Dominion.)
• Virginia Senate pushes back decision on budget, Medicaid expansion another week
• After bitter debate, Virginia Senate’s budget deliberations to extend into next week
• With Democrats unable to pull off ‘nuclear’ move, Va. Senate puts off Medicaid vote (“The delay came with a change in tone from Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R), who for the first time publicly acknowledged that expansion is likely to pass the Senate. The House has already backed it.”)
• Federal judge rules in favor of transgender Va. student who sought to use boys’ bathroom (“Gavin Grimm, who attended a Gloucester, Va., high school, had sought to use the boys’ bathroom at the school but was blocked by school authorities. The case, which the Supreme Court sent back to a lower court, was at the center of the fight over transgender student rights.”)
• Virginia elections board fines Gillespie campaign $2,000 for TV ads
• Virginia Beach delegate was fined for attack ad, but not because she called opponent “racist.” (“The content wasn’t what landed Del. Cheryl Turpin in hot water. The ad targeting her opponent, Republican Rocky Holcomb, was incomplete, according to the state Board of Elections.”)
• A citizen was shot by Park Police officers. The authorities won’t say why. (“Neither the U.S. Park Police nor the FBI will explain why a young man was shot in Northern Virginia.” Wildly unacceptable.)
• U.S. high court to take up issue of whether Virginia can ban a uranium mine
• Schapiro: Heads in one barrel, fillets in the other (“Virginia’s relationship with Northrop Grumman, under which the former would pay the latter billions of dollars to provide info-tech services, was spun as a model of commonwealth-corporate cooperation. It quickly spun out of control.”)
• Editorial: Northam’s vetoes limit health care options (Hahahaha, no.)
• Norfolk council approves real-estate tax hike, millions more for schools
• Editorial: The numbers Franklin County should be paying attention to
• Warm weather sticks around through Friday