Thursday News: “True Coronavirus Toll in the U.S. Has Already Surpassed 200,000”; “Kamala Harris is a living, breathing rebuke to the Trump presidency”; “Republicans are becoming the QAnon Party”; “More dominoes need to fall in ACP’s wake”

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Thursday, August 13.

• Modi’s Key Ministers Hit by Coronavirus as Pandemic Grips India
• German Infections Rise; New Cases of Reactivations: Virus Update
• Britain plunges into deep recession, with steep job losses and Europe’s highest virus death toll
• After a Rigged Election, Belarus Crushes Protests Amid an Information Blackout
• Could the Beirut Explosion Be a Turning Point for Lebanon? (“Chronic corruption must be rooted out.”)
• Air pollution is much worse than we thought (“Ditching fossil fuels would pay for itself through clean air alone.”)
• The True Coronavirus Toll in the U.S. Has Already Surpassed 200,000
• U.S. reports highest number of virus deaths in one day since mid-May (“President Trump continued to press for schools to bring children into classrooms, for businesses to open and for athletes to fill stadiums.”)
• Weekly Unemployment Claims on Track for 21 Weeks Above 1 Million
• Accuracy of U.S. coronavirus data thrown into question as decline in testing skews drop in new cases (Just what Trump wanted?)
• Trump’s quiet acceptance of QAnon has become something bigger
• The Party of Lincoln Belongs to QAnon Now. Thanks, Donald! (“In Trump’s world, the political utility of having a closet of conspiracy-crazed Boomer rubes is worth the downsides.”)
• Republicans are becoming the QAnon Party
• ‘Overture’ for more virus talks rejected as standoff deepens
• Relief talks stumble, and Trump asserts that a deal is ‘not going to happen’
• Trump, Pelosi Make Opposing Economic Bets in Stimulus Standoff (“The two sides are at least $1 trillion apart on another package of relief the U.S. economy needs.”)
• COVID-19 relief talks look dead until September
• Another illegal Trump administration policy, and yet another premature Trump administration victory lap
• Why Young Adults Are Driving the New Coronavirus Spike
• US Coal Power Generation Plummets 30% in 2020, EIA Says (“Coal power fell by a record amount last year, and things have gone downhill quickly from there for the embattled sector.”)
• After Trump, America Needs Accountability for His Corruption (“Restoring the rule of law is not the same as ‘lock her up.'” It’s totally different.)
• The Democratic Popular Vote Lock
• Biden and Harris go after Trump in first appearance as the Democratic ticket
• GOP says Kamala Harris is too tough and too weak on crime
• The Generals Won’t Save American Democracy (“Why appeals to the military to remove Trump from office if he refuses to step down are misguided and dangerous.”)
• Harris and Biden make first appearance as running mates and excoriate ‘failure’ Trump
• Why Kamala Harris Could Be Biden’s Secret Weapon Against Trump
• If the Republican Party Gets Wiped Out in November, It’s Going to Lose What’s Left of Its Mind (“I don’t think the response to a thumping Trump-inflicted wipeout is going to be a Kasichian return to simple Reaganaut extremism.”)
• Kamala Harris is a living, breathing rebuke to the Trump presidency: Mastio & Lawrence
• I thought it didn’t matter whether Joe Biden picked a Black woman. And then it happened.
• ‘Extraordinarily nasty’: Trump hurls one of his favorite insults at a new target — Kamala Harris (“The resonance of President Trump’s ‘nasty’ adjective is often different when the recipient is a woman — and different still when that woman is a person of color.”)
• Trump and his allies unleash a blizzard of attacks against Harris (“From ‘phony’ to ‘far-left radical,’ the scattershot nature of the onslaught underscored a lack of GOP consensus.” Yep, all over the place and self-contradictory. Lame.)
• Biden and Harris proved it doesn’t take a rally to deliver a big message
• “She’ll Scare the S—t Out of Suburban Women”: Inside Trumpworld’s Anti-Kamala Harris Attack Plan
• Harris is a small-c conservative, party-friendly pick — which makes her just right for Biden
• As Kamala Harris Joins Biden Ticket, Wall Street Sighs in Relief
• Kamala Harris just showed why Biden chose her as his running mate
• The Flaw in Trump’s Plan to Paint Biden As Kamala Harris’s Puppet
• Republicans fret over Trump team’s reaction to Harris pick (“Despite plenty of time to prepare, the president’s reaction to Biden’s running mate is raising concerns among Republicans.”)
• Phony? Radical? Republicans have no idea how they want to attack Kamala Harris.
• Could Kamala Harris Win The Presidency In 2024? Here’s What History Tells Us.
• Biden’s Smart Pick for Vice President Tells Us a Lot
• Financial disclosures reveal postmaster general’s business entanglements and likely conflicts of interest, experts say
• Mail sorting equipment being “removed” from post offices, leaving mail to “pile up”: union leader
• Postal Service could halt special treatment of ballots, congressional Democrats warn
• Kanye West met with Kushner as rapper eyes 2020 election spot
• Trump projected his flaws on Hillary Clinton, and it worked — but 2020 is different
• Republicans should listen to John Kasich (“A GOP voice of sanity explains why voting against Trump is essential.”)
• The Michael Flynn case should not just go away
• The Court Proceedings in the Michael Flynn Case Have Turned Into a Farce
• Trump appoints anti-LGBTQ activist to US Commission on Civil Rights (“J. Christian Adams previously served on Trump’s failed voter suppression commission.”)
• Bob Woodward obtains letters between Trump and Kim Jong-un for new book Rage
• New Bob Woodward book will include details of 25 personal letters between Trump and Kim Jong Un
• ‘Antifa’ website cited in conservative media attack on Biden is linked to — wait for it — Russia
• Let it flow: Trump Administration eases showerhead rules (Stupid, stupid, stupid.)
• GOP leaders’ embrace of House candidate draws attention to party’s tolerance of bigotry (“Marjorie Taylor Greene, who won a primary in Georgia, promotes the QAnon conspiracy theory and has made racist, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic comments.”)
• The Daily News Is Now a Newspaper Without a Newsroom
• College football cancelled amid COVID-19? Not if Trump (or greedy colleges) can help it (“The push to play college football this fall ignores science, ignores the facts on the ground and ignores any nuance in every aspect of how the business of college football is constructed.”)
• Top Facebook Official: Our Aim Is To Make Lying On the Platform ‘More Difficult’
• FiveThirtyEight.com Model Has Biden With 92% Chance of Winning Virginia, Probably By a 55%-44% Margin (For comparison, The Economist gives Biden a 96% chance of winning Virginia, most likely by about 11 points)
• Kaine: ‘They Should Really Focus on Doing a Healthy Number of Events Together’
• Federal lawmakers from Virginia demand answers on postal service’s operational changes ‘negatively impacting’ service
• Congressional leaders in Virginia to attend anti-Semitism forum on Thursday
• Dr. Cameron Webb (D-VA05) on 3rd Anniversary of White Supremacist Attacks in Charlottesville: “We must support those in Charlottesville still fighting for justice, for equity, & for opportunity”
• “3 years ago, violence descended upon Charlottesville bringing terror and hate to our Commonwealth.”
• Warner Questions USPS Over Possible Election Mail Slowdown
• Video: Sen. Mark Warner Holds “socially-distanced Election Security Roundtable with Directors of Elections from localities across Northern Virginia”(Warner concerned about “Russian disinformation,” Trump’s undermining of the Postal Service, Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting, etc.)
• Editorial: Why aren’t Democrats doing anything about the parole board report? (“The inspector general says that the parole board never contacted the family for any of those reviews and never really tried. That means this is a failure that extends across 26 years and seven administrations — four Democratic and three Republican. Northam could easily — and accurately — say he’s moving to clean up a long-standing problem that escaped attention until his own appointee uncovered it. But he hasn’t.”)
• FBI investigates shooting of military helicopter in Virginia
• VA GOP U.S. Senate Nominee Daniel Gade Apparently Thinks Staunton and Rockingham County Are In “SWVA”
• Amanda Chase Promises That If She’s Elected Governor, There Will Be “Absolutely Zero Tolerance” for People Shooting at Helicopters (Responses include: “It is literally being investigated”; “Did Governor Northam tolerate this and I missed it?” & “Lmao ‘next governor'”)
• Why Virginia’s election night might be more like an election week
• Meet the homophobic minister taking Jerry Falwell’s place at Liberty University (“Jerry Prevo has spent decades fighting LGBTQ equality.”)
• As Virginia lawmakers weigh civilian oversight of police, some in law enforcement object (I’m with Del. Patrick Hope on this one: “If done right, they have the potential to create much needed transparency and accountability in law enforcement.”)
• More dominoes need to fall in ACP’s wake (“The MVP is possibly even more harmful than the ACP. It is a fracked-gas pipeline of similar size and even greater fossil fuel emissions, and its developers have already racked up hundreds of water-quality violations. Yet construction could resume as early as this summer. Gov. Ralph Northam should disallow any potential work on this pipeline immediately. ” Agreed, this problem is a disgrace and should have been deep-sixed a LONG time ago!)
• It’s Been 14 Years Since the “Macaca” Incident: Some Thoughts…and an Update on What Jim Webb, George Allen Have Done Since Then
• Wednesday (8/12) Virginia Data on COVID-19 Finds +776 Confirmed/Probable Cases (to 102,521), +74 Hospitalizations (to 8,532), +8 Deaths (to 2,352) From Yesterday
• Dominion steps up pace on project to put vulnerable power lines underground
• Editorial: Cooperation secures reprieve for local migratory birds
• Can Kirk Cox rescue the Virginia GOP? (Not sure I’d say Cox is “a formidable, even prohibitive, favorite for the GOP nomination.”)
• Editorial: As job opportunities shift, Virginia’s community colleges are able to adapt
• Del. Ken Plum: Defund the Police (This article has a huge problem and a minor one. The huge one is the headline, which is NOT AT ALL what Del. Plum is arguing. In fact, he writes, “We must be willing to spend dollars appropriately to accomplish those objectives. It is over-simplifying a complex issue to suggest that we can ‘defund the police.'” The minor one is that he misspelled “rein in” as “reign in,” which a lot of people do.)
• Roanoke’s more cautious approach to virtual school reopening echoes those of larger cities
• Protests erupt in violence in Richmond, where residents say the ongoing turmoil has eroded their support for demonstrations (Smashing windows and vandalizing businesses is not acceptable at all. Period.)
• Stoney promises police investigation after Richmond riot: ‘You will go to jail!’ (“It undermines any sort of mission behind Black Lives Matter.” Yep, Levar Stoney is 100% right.)
• Why One Activist Injured in Charlottesville Won’t Give Up (“For Constance Paige Young, who was among the counterprotesters injured in Charlottesville, it is a moral obligation to continue showing up.”)
• A Historic First on a Historic Night, Stafford School Board Passes First Anti-Racism Resolution
• Humid with periodic downpours through the weekend and some rain-free intervals (“Some downpours could cause flooding, but it’s nevertheless dry more often than wet.”)