by Lowell
Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, December 4.
- 5 Big Trends That Increased Earth’s Carbon Pollution (“For the third year in a row, carbon emissions from fossil fuels have hit a record high.” Disaster.)
- Climate Change Is Accelerating: ‘Things Are Getting Worse’
- U.S., China Move Closer to Trade Deal Despite Heated Rhetoric
- For Trump and Europe, a Surprising Role Reversal (“Where the president once kept European leaders off balance, Europe’s shifting landscape now has the Great Disrupter scrambling to recalibrate his approach.”)
- Trump, Macron hold tense meeting: ‘Would you like some nice ISIS fighters? I can give them to you’
- Division pervades NATO as the ‘brain dead’ meet the ‘delinquent’
- Trump again blows up a trade deal. Congress needs to step up. (“The immediate effect of the president’s outburst was to send stock markets plummeting and to remind the world that the trade policy of the planet’s largest economy is in unsteady hands.”)
- Candid video appears to show Trudeau, Macron and Johnson joking about Trump
- North Korea warns US to prepare for ‘Christmas gift,’ but no one’s sure what to expect
- Trump Extorted Ukraine in 2017 and 2018 Before Getting Caught This Year (“… the effort almost certainly took place over years, not months. Indeed it grew directly out of the ties developed between Trump’s campaign and Russian intelligence during the 2016 campaign.”)
- House Intelligence Report: Devin Nunes Was In Contact With Rudy Giuliani, Lev Parnas
- The most damning sentence in the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment report (“This sentence is really all you need to know — and it’s arguably the most important sentence in the impeachment saga so far”: “The impeachment inquiry has found that President Trump, personally and acting through agents within and outside of the U.S. government, solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, to benefit his reelection.”)
- House Committee Report: Trump Misused Power, Obstructed Congress
- The House Impeachment Report Highlights Trump’s Abuses of Power (“Trump’s behavior raises fundamental questions about the ability, or inability, of the American political system to police a rogue President.”)
- A grave charge and a momentous turn in the Trump impeachment inquiry (“In effect, the 300-page House Intelligence Committee summary of witness testimony, timelines and phone records accused Trump of perpetrating one of the most serious political crimes in the history of the United States…It is that the 45th President presents an immediate, clear and future threat to American national security, the Constitution and the resilience of the republic’s democratic self-governance itself.” Correct.)
- The Intelligence Committee’s report is a triumph
- Three big takeaways from the Democrats’ damning new impeachment report (“The corrupt plot implicated multiple top administration officials and Trump allies…Trump’s “no quid pro quo” defense has been reduced to smoking wreckage…Trump has shown his corrupt undermining of our democracy will continue, posing a danger to the nation going forward”)
- Report Reveals Call Records Between Giuliani, White House and Nunes
- A Mysterious ‘-1’ and Other Call Records Show How Giuliani Pressured Ukraine
- Nunes’ role exposed and 8 more takeaways from the Intel report
- Call records show Devin Nunes in contact with indicted Giuliani associate
- Here’s what the Ukraine report reveals about Devin Nunes’ shady role in the scandal
- Democrats obtained phone records showing how Trump allies coordinated ‘false narratives’
- Democrats should not give up the fight to hear from more witnesses
- Impeachment Investigators Got Rudy Giuliani’s Phone Records—And They’re Quite Revealing
- GOP embraces a debunked Ukraine conspiracy to defend Trump (“The adoption of the Russian-fueled claims illustrates a rapid transformation for a party that once celebrated a hawkish approach to Moscow.”)
- The Republicans have become the party of Russia. This makes me sick.
- G.O.P. Senators, Defending Trump, Embrace Debunked Ukraine Theory (Appalling but not surprising from the Trump Republican Party.)
- Stakes rise for Republicans as Trump impeachment inquiry enters new phase
- Judiciary Hearing To Open Final Act Of Democrats’ Trump Impeachment Saga
- The Ukraine Scandal Is Bigger Than We Realized, Democrats’ Report Suggests (“The document reveals that Trump-linked lawyers secretly represented Ukrainian officials.”)
- If Republicans Acquit Trump, They’re Putting a ‘For Sale’ Sign in Every American Embassy Window (“The Democratic report on the president’s ratf*cking in Ukraine is a showcase of overwhelming evidence.”)
- How the Republicans Are Trying to Gaslight America With Their Impeachment Report (“It’s a Soviet-style rewriting of history to protect their dear leader.”)
- Of All the Efforts to Defend Trump, This Conspiracy Theory Is the Worst
- Stephen Miller: why is Trump’s white nationalist aide untouchable? (“Lawmakers and civil rights groups have called for the ‘quiet extremist’ to step down, but the White House stands by him” Because Trump himself is a white nationalist, aka white supremacist)
- Pro-Trump group targets Democrats with ‘End the Witch Hunt’ campaign (Parroting Trump’s lawless, unhinged language.)
- This Absurd Richard Burr Interview Is Proof Republicans Are All Lost Now
- Kamala Harris Says She’s Still ‘in This Fight,’ but Out of the 2020 Race (“The California senator broke barriers but ran out of money as she struggled in polls. Her abrupt announcement is perhaps the most surprising development to date in the 2020 race.”)
- I am suspending my campaign today
- Sympathy for the K-Hive: Kamala Harris ran a bad campaign — and faced remarkable online spite (“‘Kamala is a cop’ probably isn’t what finished her. But why was the online hate aimed at Harris so gleeful?”)
- Kamala Harris’s Long Road to an Early Exit Inside her promising rise and painful fall.
- Kamala Harris: how the ‘female Obama’ started with a bang and went downhill
- The two challenges that doomed Kamala Harris (“A Biden-Harris ticket, with a one-term Biden presidency? A Buttigieg-Harris ticket? These seem hardly far-fetched.”)
- Biden struts as his rivals bite the dust (“The former VP is talking like the nomination is his to lose.”)
- Why Kamala Harris’s Campaign Failed (“Harris is not Obama, and 2019 is not 2007. The rise of Trump and his brand of identity politics have probably made Democrats more wary of a female or minority presidential candidate.”)
- Kamala Harris Was in an Impossible Bind (“The Democrats’ leftward turn on race and criminal justice doomed the only black woman in the presidential race.”)
- The spectacular collapse of Kamala Harris (“The candidate with so much promise couldn’t find her footing until it was much too late.”)
- The Democratic Race Is Poorer for Losing Kamala Harris (“But the California senator will remain a force.”)
- In Which Politico Attempts to Cast Mike Pence as a Suburban Sex Symbol (“The vice president is a real heartthrob—just ask Tiger Beat on the Potomac.” How embarrassing.)
- The Lawfare Podcast: Senator Kaine on War Powers and the Coming Impeachment Trial
- As impeachment inquiry goes to Judiciary Committee, the only Virginian on the panel calls the process ‘patently unfair’ (LOL, Ben Cline.)
- Why Dominion’s Approach to Offshore Wind May Prove Costly to Consumers
- Pipeline Opponents Say Environmental Protections Don’t Go Far Enough (Classic way for the media to dodge doing its job, saying “x group SAYS something” instead of looking into it and determining whether or not it’s objectively accurate. Which, in this case, it is.)
- New report on Virginia schools says achievement gaps persist
- New Poll: “Virginians support much of Democratic agenda in General Assembly” (By huge margins in most cases…)
- Virginia Energy Policy Needs To Be Scrapped and Rewritten, Not Played With At the Margins, As Sen. Barbara Favola’s New Bill Does
- Report: Virginia rarely helps workers collect unpaid wages from deadbeat employers (That needs to change!)
- Editorial: New General Assembly should say yes to redistricting amendment (Maybe, maybe not, but one thing’s for sure, Democrats shouldn’t listen to the Republican Times-Disgrace editorial board.)
- ‘Law-abiding’ gun owners say they won’t abide any new laws (“The irony is lost on them, apparently.”)
- Shaun Kenney returning to RPV (LOL: “There is ample evidence that Kenney is a ‘Never Trumper’ and he refused to endorse Corey Stewart as our candidate for Senate in 2018. Kenney was a big supporter of former Congressman Eric Cantor, opposing Congressman David Brat every step of the way, even after Brat became our nominee for Congress and eventually our Congressman, who Kenney referred to as “Virginia’s most useless Congressman”. Kenney often quoted The Washington Post and Politico in their opposition to Dave Brat.”)
- Video: Sen. Janet Howell, Del. Alfonso Lopez Lay Out Top Priorities for 2020 Virginia General Assembly
- Speaker-Designee Eileen Filler-Corn Announces Additional Committee Chair Decisions (Charniele Herring, Courts of Justice; David Bulova, General Laws; Joe Lindsey, Privileges and Elections; Ken Plum, Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources)
- Fairfax Supervisor Jeff McKay cleared of wrongdoing in house purchase
- After Helping Turn County Blue, Fairfax County Democratic Committee Institution Frank Anderson Moves On to a New Challenge
- Hundreds descend on VB City Hall demanding a ‘2nd Amendment sanctuary’; Gloucester unanimously approves theirs
- Hundreds flood Virginia Beach City Hall to fight for gun rights
- Chesapeake School Reported Significant Jump in Restraints; School Attributes Majority to One Student
- Richmond City Council selects consultant to review $1.5B Navy Hill plan
- Editorial: School needed to be more transparent (“Norfolk Public Schools needed to be more forthcoming with information about alleged teacher abuse at Bay View Elementary, according to the Editorial Board.”)
- Roanoke County supervisors approve gun sanctuary resolution
- Richmond firefighter slain in Hopewell was not intended target and was shielding her child from gunfire (Ugh, horrible.)
- A snow or rain shower possible today; staying cool and mostly calm through the weekend
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