Sunday News: Kelly Leaves “Crazytown”; “Two Business Cycles to Prepare for A Low-Carbon World”; “Trump Brothers Bedtime Cold Open – SNL”; Dominion “Erasing Black Lives”; Winter Storm Hits Virginia

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Sunday, December 9.

• May Sticks With Crucial Vote as Johnson Cites EU ‘Blackmail’
• Coal for Christmas at the U.N. Climate Conference (“As negotiators from around the world gathered in Poland to discuss how to lower carbon emissions, the Trump Administration unveiled two schemes promoting fossil fuels.” The Trump administration is sociopathic/evil, trashing the planet edition.)
• Paris cleans up after latest riot; pressure builds on Macron (“Most of the yellow vest demonstrators in Paris appeared to be working class white men from elsewhere in France, angry at economic inequalities and stagnation…The disparate movement now has other demands, from taxing the rich to raising the minimum wage to having the 40-year-old Macron, a former banker and economist, hand in his resignation.”)
• What Will Follow Emmanuel Macron? (“A coalition of left-wing parties — the Socialist Party, Defiant France, and the Communist Party — announced that it will introduce a no-confidence vote in Macron’s government on Monday. According to the Associated Press, they probably don’t have the votes to succeed. But now or in the near future, the French left will have to answer the yellow vests with a coherent and constructive message that addresses the roots of their outrage. The alternative might be another far-right government in Europe.”)
• Trump uses Yellow Jackets to attack Paris climate deal (Batshit crazy as usual.)
• Liebreich: Two Business Cycles to Prepare for A Low-Carbon World (“Reasons to be cheerful, part 1: it’s not all about climate politics…Reasons to be cheerful, part 2: clean energy and transport fundamentals”)
• ‘Siege warfare’: Republican anxiety spikes as Trump faces growing legal and political perils
• White House sees another shake-up as Trump announces chief of staff’s exit
• John Kelly, the White House Chief of Staff, Is Finally Leaving “Crazytown”
• The Wooing of Jared Kushner: How the Saudis Got a Friend in the White House
• John Kelly Was Supposed to Bring Credibility to the White House. He Failed. (“No tears should be shed for the outgoing chief of staff.”)
• This Tough Guy Wasn’t Smarter Than Everyone Else After All (“And his boss is even dumber than he is.”)
• John Kelly Couldn’t Fix the Trump Presidency (“Under Kelly’s guidance, the White House functioned more effectively than it had during the tenure of his predecessor—yet it still remained unfathomably chaotic.”)
• Manafort, Cohen, and Individual 1 Are in Grave Danger (“Robert Mueller is closing in on the president and all his men.”)
• The Reason Prosecutors Hammered Michael Cohen Despite His Cooperation With Robert Mueller (“Cohen has a lot more he could give. The government knows that. They want to crack him. Moreover, even on the stuff he’s given them so far, he is a less valuable witness so long as he refuses to be fully candid. They are tired of playing his coy little game, and political considerations require speed. So they’ve accelerated sentencing, and set up a classic ‘good cop – bad cop’ squeeze”)
• Beto O’Rourke Emerges as the Wild Card of the 2020 Campaign-in-Waiting
• Trump 2020 Shaping Up to Be a Campaign to Stay Out of Prison
• I Like Joe Biden. I Urge Him Not to Run. (“He’s impeccably qualified. Ask Hillary Clinton how that worked out.”)
• First wave of 2020 panic: Is Biden vs. Bernie really the best Democrats can do? (“After the sweeping, female-fueled victories of the midterms, a battle of old white dudes could spell disaster”)
• The Constitution has no way to deal with the fact that Trump is implicated in a serious crime
• Mueller Weaves Trump, Manafort and Cohen Ever Closer
• Two more immigrants say they were employed by Trump while undocumented (“The president has made targeting undocumented people a pillar of his administration.”)
• Trump Risks Return of Strife With Kelly’s West Wing Departure
• Kelly exit helps position Trump for 2020 (“The president, who is organizing for his re-election campaign, may tap political operative Nick Ayers to replace the retired Marine general.”)
• Cory Booker will decide whether to run for president ‘over the holidays’
• Robert De Niro’s Robert Mueller joins SNL’s Eric and Donald Trump Jr. for a bedtime horror (“While the cold open was funny enough, it relied on two features that have been criticized in the Trump era: A reliance on both guest stars and repeated bits.”)
• SNL shows how the Trump presidency would go if he was black
• GOP lawmakers are now thinking Trump may not finish out his term after Mueller bombshells: conservative columnist
• ‘Damaged goods’: Alleged fraud has GOP bracing for loss of N.C. seat (“Democrat Dan McCready would be favored to win a special election if one is called, strategists in both parties say.”)
• Kaine hopeful that senators will warm to new military force authorization after Yemen vote
• Virginia House Democratic Caucus Balloting Underway [UPDATED x3 – The Winner Is Eileen Filler-Corn]
• Year-old 66 Express Lanes have caused shifts in commuter behavior, but not necessarily in ways officials hoped (“Fewer cars use I-66 during the tolling hours, but numbers increase after the toll lifts, part of a dramatic shift in travel patterns.”)
• Va. Democrats elect Eileen Filler-Corn as House caucus leader (“Vote could position Fairfax delegate as first female speaker if Democrats take majority.”)
• Audio: Far-Right, Theocratic Bigot EW Jackson Explains His Plan to Bully, Intimidate Virginia Media (RTD, Virginian-Pilot, etc.) (“We’ve hit the Richmond Times-Dispatch, we’re going to keep following up with them. We’re now going to the Virginian-Pilot, they are our next target.”)
• Prominent White Supremacist Is An EMT In Virginia. Now The State Is Investigating Him. (“Alex McNabb, the host of a popular neo-Nazi podcast, regularly compares black patients to animals.”)
• A.E. Dick Howard and Rebecca Green: A chance to end gerrymandering in Virginia
• Video: Ralph Northam Walks Away from 2018 VA-06 Dem Nominee Jennifer Lewis After She Asks Him About the Pipelines (“I asked if I could talk to him about the pipeline and that’s when his staffer quickly moved him away from me”)
• 100 People, Including Karenna Gore, Send Letter to Virginia Air Pollution Control Board Urging Rejection of Proposed Compressor Station in Union Hill
• Erasing black lives: Dominion Energy misleads Virginia Air Pollution Board regarding demographics of Union Hill.
• Court presented with multiple versions of new Va. legislative map
• Sophia A. Nelson column: Can the Virginia Republican Party rebound in the Age of Trump? (“The Virginia GOP must clean house of any and all remnants of white nationalism, like that espoused by Corey Stewart. He is an infection on the state party, just as Trump is on the national party.” Problem is, that’s a significant chunk of the VA GOP primary electorate.)
• We Need to Hear What Bill Bolling Has to Say (“He was, and remains, a strong critic of the type of politics embodied by President Trump and was appalled when his party nominated Corey Stewart, with his ties to white nationalist and neo-Confederate groups, as its challenger to U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine this year.”)
• Strong storms and rising seas (“Our changing climate is having a significant impact on Hampton Roads through rising seas and stronger storms”)
• Gov. Ralph Northam declares state of emergency ahead of Sunday’s winter storm
• Editorial: Seismic testing’s real threat to the region (“THE TRUMP administration’s decision last month to allow seismic air gun testing in the Atlantic Ocean — a substantial step toward opening the area for oil and gas exploration — represents a profound threat to the economy and life of Hampton Roads.”)
• All eyes on natural gas compressor vote Monday
• Norfolk Southern delay sidetracks New River Valley’s Amtrak plan
• Farewell: I’ve enjoyed giving you my opinion over the past 18 years (That’s unfortunate; I like Roger Chesley’s columns a lot. The Virginian-Pilot continues to deteriorate, sad to say…)
• Sunday’s snow amounts trending higher; Winter storm watch expanded northward to Richmond metro
• North Carolina, Southern Virginia face immobilizing storm with heavy snow and ice
• Accumulating snow lurks to our south today; cold and dry tomorrow through midweek (“We could see a coating today here in the immediate metro area, although it could end up just being some conversational flurries.”)