by Lowell
Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Friday, June 21.
- Trump Approves Strikes on Iran, but Then Abruptly Pulls Back (“Officials said the president had initially approved attacks on a handful of Iranian targets, like radar and missile batteries. The operation was underway in its early stages when it was called off, a senior administration official said. Planes were in the air and ships were in position, but no missiles had been fired when word came to stand down, the official said.”)
- For Trump, ‘Judgment Time Is Coming’ on How to Respond to Iran
- Attacking Iran Is Congress’s Call (“The Trump administration’s campaign of maximum pressure and minimal diplomacy is bringing the two countries ever closer to blows. Lawmakers must weigh in.”)
- How things seem to have escalated so quickly between the US and Iran
- Iran’s U.N. Ambassador: U.S. Escalating Hostilities Like A ‘Knife Under Your Throat’
- Iran must escape the American chokehold before it becomes fatal (“We’re closer to the brink of war.”)
- Tory leadership: Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt are final two
- Spy-Satellite Images Reveal How Climate Change Is Rapidly Melting the Himalayan Glaciers
- Exclusive: Exxon’s $53 billion Iraq deal hit by contract snags, Iran tensions – sources
- The Trumpification of the Federal Reserve (“Like it or not, its next move will be political.”)
- Biden Doesn’t Get It: McConnell’s Gotta Go if Democracy Is Gonna Live (“This problem isn’t Democrats tacking left, or Washington dysfunction. It’s McConnell. And Democrats need to let America know.”)
- Hope Hicks Refused to Answer Questions 155 Times in Train Wreck Testimony for Democrats
- Pro-impeachment ranks grow as Pelosi remains unmoved
- 2020 Democrats Offer Up Affordable Housing Plans Amid Surging Prices (“New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker would provide financial incentives to encourage local governments to get rid of zoning laws that limit the construction of affordable housing.”)
- Biden is being Biden. That’s a risk. (“His longevity in Washington is both his Thor’s hammer and his Achilles’ heel.”)
- This is Joe Biden’s real problem (“Biden might be able to stumble through the primaries without changing a thing. However, Democrats should not imagine that they can beat Trump without a nimble, shrewd nominee who can make Trump look clueless. That means Biden had better refine his game — and find a coach whose advice he will take to heart.”)
- Hicks told House panel Trump is serious about foreign help in elections
- The Supreme Court’s Conservatives Are Ready to Take a Wrecking Ball to the Entire Federal Bureaucracy
- Senate confirms judge who’s so anti-LGBTQ even Susan Collins voted no (“Matthew Kacsmaryk has said trans people have a ‘mental disorder’ and opposes every aspect of LGBTQ equality”)
- Democrats amplify calls to subpoena Mueller
- Alabama governor signs law allowing church to have its own police force (WTF?)
- Centrist Dems Hope Post-Mueller Election Security Plan Will Give Them Leverage in 2020 (“Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a freshman Blue Dog and former CIA official who represents a Trump-leaning Virginia district, told The Daily Beast that Republicans and Democrats agree on an indisputable premise—that election interference was and continues to be a threat to the integrity of U.S. democracy—and cast the new policy push as something both sides can gather around, drawing an implicit comparison with the politically charged obstruction investigation being carried out by the House Judiciary Committee.”)
- Trump and the Rhetoric of Fascism (“Why is it worse for AOC to call Trump a fascist than for Trump to advocate fascism?”)
- I’m a Jewish historian. Yes, we should call border detention centers “concentration camps.” (“It isn’t just accurate. It’s necessary.”)
- Migrant children describe neglect at Texas border facility (Unacceptable and unforgivable.)
- Roy Moore is running for Alabama’s Senate seat — again
- Roy Moore, accused child molester and twice-removed judge, announces 2020 Senate run (“He’s back”)
- The 2020 Democrats are Running on an Outmoded Obama Climate Policy
- Tensions ripple through Biden campaign as his past working relationship with a segregationist senator comes to the forefront
- Marco Rubio’s humiliating transformation into a Trump fan-boy is complete
- Laura Ingraham Dismisses Reparations: ‘No Do-Overs…We Won, You Lost, That’s That’ (She truly is a “monster,” as her own brother thinks.)
- Is the world ready to bank with Facebook? (“If the company has its way, people around the globe will rely on its cryptocurrency.”)
- Cities Start to Question an American Ideal: A House With a Yard on Every Lot (“Townhomes, duplexes and apartments are effectively banned in many neighborhoods. Now some communities regret it…A reckoning with single-family zoning is necessary, they say, amid mounting crises over housing affordability, racial inequality and climate change.”)
- What are lawns good for? Almost nothing. (Agreed; replace them all with native plantings.)
- Governor sends police after GOP senators who fled Capitol (“Oregon Gov. Kate Brown deployed the state police Thursday to try to round up Republican lawmakers who fled the Capitol to block a vote on a landmark economy-wide climate plan that would be the second of its kind in the nation.” Republicans will do *anything* to protect their fossil fuel industry pals and to destroy the planet.)
- Sinclair is forcing its stations to run a commentary segment that’s essentially a Trump campaign ad (“Sinclair chief political commentator and former Trump aide Boris Epshteyn hosted a new ‘must-run’ gushing about the president’s 2020 campaign” A reminder never ever to watch WJLA TV 7 “news”)
- Cuccinelli Appointment Riles Democrats, Even Some Republicans
- Editorial: The right call on uranium mining
- Va. lawmakers scramble to keep USDA offices in D.C. region
- Virginia public defenders adopting ‘holistic’ approach to combat recidivism
- Governor Northam Announces Employment Equity Initiative for State Agencies
- Anne Holton Selected Interim President of GMU
- FWIW Virginia: New Districts, Who Dis?
- Fairfax ‘thinking very seriously’ about run for governor, says scandal has raised his public profile (Hard pass.)
- Anne Holton named George Mason U. interim president (I love how the WaPo article doesn’t even mention the Koch brothers.)
- Report Exposes Corporate Influence in Education of Judges; Calls for GMU to Disaffiliate from Ideologically-Driven Program
- Editorial: 8 takeaways from the rowdy gun roundtable in Abingdon (Ugh, more “both sides-ism” from the Roanoke Times.)
- Jack Evans to resign from Metro board after probe shows he ‘knowingly’ violated rules
- Jack Evans is departing the Metro board. But the story isn’t over.
- Alicia Plerhoples: The Washington Post Editorial Board’s Claims of “Identity Politics” Are Used to Silence Us (“We will not be shamed into silence about our identities and experiences by an out-of-touch media.”)
- Video: “This Fight Is Now” Follows SW Virginia Resister As She Journeys to Stand With the Union Hill Community Against the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and Its Proposed Compressor Station
- Contrary to online posts, Del. Chris Peace is not running as an independent
- In their own words: Loudoun supervisors provide quick takes on the county’s new Comprehensive Plan
- Map: Arlington’s Multi-Family Housing Mostly Concentrated in South, Making North Arlington “Completely Inaccessible to Many”
- Prince William County School Board rejects contract extension for superintendent
- Equality Loudoun Calls for Resignation of Leesburg Town Council Members Tom Dunn and Josh Thiel
- Windy and otherwise sublime as we start summer
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