Saturday News: Mueller Indictments Prove “Witches” Are Real; Roger Stone the “US Person”; Natural Gas a “Bridge”…to Nowhere

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Saturday, July 14.

• Trump persists in his push for friendly ties with Putin despite Russia indictments
• There’s No Claiming It’s a “Witch Hunt” Anymore (“Trump will seem more unhinged than ever if he tries to brush off Rosenstein’s announcement of Russian indictments”)
• 12 Russian Agents Indicted in Mueller Investigation (“Intelligence Officers Charged Ahead of Trump-Putin Visit” If we only had a real president, one willing to stand up for the United States, and not a Russian “asset” like we have in Trump.)
• Mueller’s New Indictment Points to Collusion With Russia (“The most direct path to the Trump campaign indicated in this indictment runs through Roger Stone. The Republican dirty trickster officially left the Trump campaign in 2015, but remained in regular contact with Trump throughout the campaign.”)
• Trump Pressed to Confront Putin After Mueller’s Indictments (What are the chances that the useful idiot will confront his KGB handler?)
• Thanks to Robert Mueller, Trump and Putin Now Have a Summit Agenda (Or they SHOULD, anyway.)
• The Coincidence at the Heart of the Russia Hacking Scandal (“A new indictment charges that Russians tried to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails on July 27, 2016—the same day that Donald Trump publicly asked them to do so.” Treason?)
• How the Mueller News Is an Indictment of…Donald Trump and His GOP Enablers (“The special counsel’s charges reinforce what we already know: Trump aided an attack on America.”)
• Trump Tries to Repair Damage After Criticizing British Leader (Incompetent imbecile.)
• ‘Warning Lights Are Blinking Red,’ Top Intelligence Officer Says of Russian Attacks
• A timely reminder that Putin is no friend of ours
• Why is Trump undermining NATO and the EU? He just told us. (“Trump looks at Europe and he sees a scary vision of America’s possible future: a continent overrun by immigrants, nations giving up their borders to a continental super-government, cultures collapsing under the weight of migration and assimilation and political correctness.” Trump is a white nationalist and a racist, no question.)
• Republicans respond to latest Mueller indictment with desperate gaslighting (And evil/scumbag Rudy GHOULiani is at the center of it, of course.)
• Trump’s oily and obnoxious personality sorely tests British diplomacy (America’s eternal disgrace.)
• Trump takes war on ‘fake news’ to UK – and tells towering, easily debunked lies (“The US president’s attacks on CNN and the Sun were dismal, but they stayed true to his well-honed communications strategy”)
• Trump claims he was in Scotland the day before Brexit vote. The evidence says otherwise. (“There’s a tweet for everything.”)
• Trump opens a rift in press corps as he disses CNN as ‘fake’ and Fox News as ‘real’ (Let’s define this: “fake”=news that Trump sees as not sufficiently favorable towards him; “real” is what Trump sees as sufficiently worshipful of his greatness.)
• House conservatives prep push to impeach Rosenstein
• Mueller stood up to Putin. Now it’s Trump’s turn.
• When it comes to lying, Trump is nonstop
• The Top Bombshells In Robert Mueller’s Indictment Of Russian DNC Hackers (“The indictment reveals that a congressional candidate asked the Russians for dirt on an opponent, and that the Russians seemed to be following Trump’s lead.”)
• ‘Vladimir Putin sees Trump as his American oligarch’: Former CIA chief of Russia operations explains relationship
• Schumer Calls on Trump to Cancel Putin Meeting. Good Luck With That.
• Mueller’s New Indictment of the Russian Hackers Is Full of Clues About Connections to Trump World
• How the Russians hacked the DNC and passed its emails to WikiLeaks
• Clean energy is catching up to natural gas (“Clean energy is approaching in natural gas’s rearview mirror, fast, always faster than anticipated. Think about what today’s forecasts will look like in 10 years. Which side would you bet they err on? My bet: The bridge is shorter than anyone now predicts.”)
• Mueller’s Latest Indictments Show That ‘Witches’ Are Very Real (“As Mueller reveals more facts about Russian interference and indicts more individuals for troubling crimes uncovered as part of his entirely legitimate investigation, it’s time for the GOP to tell the president that the hunt needs to continue, because the witches are very real.”)
• Roger Stone says he’s the ‘US person’ mentioned in Mueller indictment
• Where Did Donald Trump Get Two Hundred Million Dollars to Buy His Money-Losing Scottish Golf Club?
• How did Scott Pruitt become a conservative hero? Because the right abandoned its principles (“Conservatives ignored Pruitt’s sins because he protected profits above all else. The right wasn’t always like this”)
• State opposition to pipeline construction angers Trump’s supporters in Washington (“Federal agency sheds its political independence in age of Trump.”)
• HHS: All But One Of Tom Price’s Plane Trips Reviewed Broke Federal Rules
• Russians relied on bitcoin to finance election hacking, prosecutors say
• Top Intel Dem: No one-on-one Trump meeting with Putin
• Terwilliger nominated as U.S. Attorney for high-profile Eastern Virginia district
• Schapiro: Debate is expectations game for Kaine, Stewart (Behind the RTD’s draconian paywall, so can’t read this.)
• AG Herring files motion to dismiss lawsuit challenging Virginia abortion restrictions (“Mark Herring says the restrictions should be challenged in the legislature, not the courts.”)
• Authorities say they’re preparing for worst-case scenarios at anniversary rally in Charlottesville
• Kaine Addresses N. Va. Dem Business Leaders at Tysons Corner Event
• Northern Va. state lawmaker makes move to replace Toscano as Democratic House leader (This is behind the RTD’s draconian paywall, but fortunately I know someone with a subscription so I saw the story. Basically, this is just a short piece telling us that “A group of Democrats in the House of Delegates want to hold a vote to replace party leader David Toscano of Charlottesville. Del. Jennifer Boysko, D-Fairfax, who is in her second term, wants the party’s top leadership post.” I already knew all about this, but wasn’t going to write about it unless/until it seemed more serious, because it just seems destructive, divisive and assinine to me. Let’s just hope that it doesn’t happen.)
• Big bills for Virginia’s redistricting battle
• Editorial: Why does Nugent get a free pass? (Nugent is the worst of the worst.)
• Chesterfield School Board member says she may run for House of Delegates if Ingram retires (“Chesterfield County School Board member Carrie Coyner said Thursday that she’s interested in running for the Virginia House of Delegates in 2019 if Del. Riley Ingram, R-Hopewell, decides to step down from his Richmond-area seat.”)
• Dry heat of today turns muggier with time as rain chances build into early week