Wednesday News: “Midwest Freezes While Australia Burns: Welcome to the Age of Weather Extremes”; “The Roger Stone clown show is the Trump presidency in microcosm”; “No GOP appetite for a second shutdown”

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, January 30.

• Brexit: May goes back to Brussels but EU says nothing has changed
• Midwest Freezes While Australia Burns: Welcome to the Age of Weather Extremes (“Heat and drought extremes are consistent with scientific consensus: More greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere bring a greater likelihood of abnormally high temperatures. The extremely low temperatures this week in parts of the U.S. may also be a result of warming. Here’s the climate change connection.”)
• NOAA Claps Back At Trump And His Climate Change Doubts (“‘Winter storms don’t prove that global warming isn’t happening,’ the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tweeted.”)
• Extreme cold gripping Midwest does not debunk global warming, experts say (“A cold snap in the teeth of global warming is no more unusual than a cool day in summer. Both happen.” In fact, more crazy weather extremes are 100% consistent with man-made global climate chaos.)
• Economic growth for the world’s two largest economies hangs in the balance of U.S.-China trade talks
• Republicans Increasingly Split With Trump on Foreign Policy (“Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, effectively rebuked President Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan, our reporter writes in an analysis. The repudiation came on the same day that Mr. Trump’s intelligence chiefs gave Congress a radically different assessment of international threats.”)
• U.S. Intelligence Chiefs Are Sounding the Alarm About the Administration* They Work For (“They’ve earned scrutiny, but their warnings about Trump’s incompetence on North Korea and Iran are serious.”)
• Trump’s company plans to expand check of employees’ legal status
• ‘This is historic cold’: Extreme, dangerous freeze descends on the Midwest
• No GOP appetite for a second shutdown
• Federal Reserve Likely to Hold Rates Steady (“With officials signaling little urgency to raise the benchmark rate, their statement could clarify what a ‘patient’ stance implies”)
• Trump met Putin without staff or note takers present — again(“Trump reportedly keeps finding a way to meet the Russian leader privately.” Gee, wonder why!)
• The Roger Stone clown show is the Trump presidency in microcosm (“His clown act of the past few days, simultaneously self-promoting and self-defeating, has been the Trump presidency in microcosm.”)
• Republicans Are Ditching the Wall (“But the GOP may struggle to sell its base—and its boss—on slats and sensors.”)
• Roe v. Wade Is Under Immediate Threat (“If the Supreme Court doesn’t stay a Louisiana law next week, states will have a clear path to nullify the constitutional right to choose.”)
• Trump Says the Economy Is Unstoppable. Most Economists Say Otherwise. (“The Trump administration’s growth forecasts are much rosier than those by independent analysts, reflecting the president’s faith in his tax and trade policies to fundamentally improve the economy. The side that turns out to be correct could heavily influence President Trump’s odds of re-election.”)
• Stephen Miller Has Orchestrated Trump’s Most Horrible Policies. Why Doesn’t He Get the Credit?
• Democrats Want to Know What Russia Has on Steve Mnuchin (“A top lawmaker wants answers on a $25 million deal the Treasury secretary struck with an oligarch linked to Oleg Deripaska.”)
• House Democrats taunt GOP with vote to oppose shutdowns (“Virginia Rep. Jennifer Wexton will lead a symbolic vote to condemn future government shutdowns.”)
• Chris Christie rips Kushner’s dad: ‘One of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted’
• Ex-Trump Aide Says He Helped Create White House Enemies List ‘To Get Ahead’ (“I suddenly found myself a participant in this ‘Game of Thrones,’” Cliff Sims said on CNN.”)
• The White House quietly rolled back workplace safety rules during the shutdown (“Public health groups are suing the Trump administration for blocking a rule requiring employers to report details of workplace injuries.”)
• Kamala Harris and the Democrats’ Medicare-for-all litmus test
• Tulsi Gabbard campaign in disarray (“Her campaign manager is already set to depart and the congresswoman is under fire back home in Hawaii.”)
• Roger Stone saga reveals flaws in Trump’s ‘no collusion’ defense
• Los Angeles mayor announces he will not run for president in 2020 (“Eric Garcetti ends speculation after months of rumors, saying he feels he is meant to be in his current job”)
• Stacey Abrams to give Democratic response of the State of the Union (Superb choice!)
• Clinton backers say she won’t be Dem pick for 2020 nomination
• Apple Knew of FaceTime Issue for Over a Week Before It Acted (“On Jan. 19, a 14-year-old in Arizona discovered the glitch that exposed millions of iPhone users to eavesdropping. His mother exhausted every avenue she could to alert Apple. But it wasn’t until Monday that the company raced to disable Group FaceTime and said it was working on a fix.”)
• Cliff Sims Is Proud to Have Served Trump
• George Conway slams Trump: ‘Your stupidity knows no bounds’
• Schultz slammed by coffee mate (“The chief of La Colombe, an Elizabeth Warren backer, calls the former Starbucks bigwig ‘out of his depth.’”)
• Fox News loves the idea of Howard Schultz running for president (“Hoping that ‘he splits the leftist vote in the Democrats and puts Donald Trump back in for a second term,’ Fox News is ready for the Howard Schultz candidacy”)
• ‘Run, Bernie, Run’?: N.H. Progressives Divided By Another Bernie Sanders Bid
• ‘Empire’ star hospitalized in possible racist, homophobic hate crime (“Chicago police are investigating the assault of Jussie Smollett, who was attacked by two unidentified people late Tuesday night.”)
• Pay Raise for Feds This Year Likely, as Two Proposals Gain Traction
• Video: Reps. Don Beyer, Abigail Spanberger Speak Out in Support of ERA Ratification [UPDATE: Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy]
• Freshman Democratic Congresswoman In Tough Spot As Border Negotiations Begin (“Rep. Abigail Spanberger (@RepSpanberger) joins Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson to discuss her hopes for upcoming bipartisan negotiations on border security and border wall funding aimed at ending another government shutdown in three weeks.”)
• 45 Minutes, One-on-One via Skype with My Conservative Congressman Talking “the Wall,” the Shutdown, Trump, etc.
• Gov. Northam’s voter ID repeal is dead for the year (Yet ANOTHER reason to vote – and vote Democratic – this November!)
• GOP blocks Northam appointee amid senator’s feud with regulatory agency on behalf of ‘very bad actors’ (“What Grosbach didn’t know is that his contractor, JES Construction, had a powerful ally working behind the scenes on its behalf: Sen. Bill DeSteph, R-Virginia Beach, who emailed top administrators at the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation and told them to suspend disciplinary proceedings against the company until they met with him to discuss the case.” DeSteph is DeSguisting.)
• General Assembly notebook: Senate passes bill to raise reckless driving threshold; children’s ombudsman effort stalls
• Northam’s Push to Limit Campaign Contributions Fails (Gotta love the passive voice headline in which nobody – e.g., the REPUBLICANS – is responsible for KILLING good stuff like this. Corporate media sucks, part infinity.)
• Virginia and Transurban Sign Agreements to Invest More Than $1 Billion in Northern Virginia Transportation
• Editorial: Demography reveals the true state of the commonwealth (“Because the shift to out-migration in Virginia began in 2012-2013, about the same time as the federal budget sequestration, the contraction in federal spending is the most obvious reason for more Virginians moving out. In Maryland, population growth also decelerated after 2012.”)
• Va. tax officials: a bigger than expected bill from House GOP plan
• Missed opportunity for equal rights
• Effort to strip Virginia’s ‘Jim Crow-era’ pay rules stalls as Republicans worry it could force broader minimum-wage vote
• ‘Don’t Punish Pain’ rally calls for less restriction on prescription opioids for chronic pain sufferers
• Schapiro: Looking for a win, Republicans try something different: looking like Democrats (I’m afraid to even read this one…if anyone forwards it to me, that is, as it’s behind a strict paywall.)
• FTA: Metro to suffer financial hardship if it restores late-night service
• Analyst from Princeton Gerrymandering Project Gives Far-Right Del. Mark Cole’s “Independent Redstricting” Bill an “F”
• Video: VA House Republicans Kill Minimum Wage Increase. Because That’s What They Do.
• Eric Freeman: Virginia’s chance to reform ER billing (ER billing is an absolute disgrace…no transparency, minimal if any information for the “consumer,” etc, etc.)
• Despite Department of Corrections Memo, Menstruating Visitors at Virginia Prisons Continue to Face Inhumane Body Cavity Searches for Contraband
• Senate votes to exempt menstrual products from sales tax
• House panel backs Del. Nick Rush’s no-excuse absentee voting bill (“The rest of the bills related to absentee voting — offered by Democrats — did not survive the House of Delegates Privileges and Elections subcommittee on Tuesday.”)
• Bill to regulate debt settlement services wins panel OK
• One Virginia School District Sues State to Arm School Employees (“‘We were not intending to pick a battle in Richmond,’ Lee County Superintendent Brian Austin says.”)
• Karl Frisch: A Green New Deal for Fairfax County Public Schools
• Woman donates three islands in the Appomattox River in Chesterfield to land conservancy
• Bitter cold on the way with below-zero wind chills tonight; light snow Friday? (“Winds turn gusty this afternoon with a few midday snow showers possible.”)