Monday News: “Republicans closely resemble autocratic parties in Hungary and Turkey”; “Trump team just announced its surrender to the pandemic”; Barrett Confirmation Highlights GOP “Minority Rule”; “Virginia’s blue wave shows no sign of slowing”

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Monday, October 26. It’s now the final week of early voting…at this point, I’d definitely vote in person as opposed to mailing in your ballot.

• China’s Chance to Save Antarctic Sealife (“Twenty-four countries and the E.U. have agreed to create three marine parks, which would ban fishing and other industrial activity. But to become a reality, China must also agree.”)
• Republicans closely resemble autocratic parties in Hungary and Turkey – study (“Swedish university finds ‘dramatic shift’ in GOP under Trump, shunning democratic norms and encouraging violence” This party is utterly horrifying, and obviously would be unrecognizable and anathema to Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, even Ronald Reagan.)
• Putin rejects Donald Trump’s criticism of Biden family business (How does one say, “throw under the bus” in Russian? LOL)
• Dow futures fall 300 points after U.S. Covid cases hit record high
• U.S. may be entering its ‘most dangerous time’ in the pandemic as winter approaches
• Trump pitches an alternate reality as coronavirus troubles deepen
• White House signals defeat in pandemic as coronavirus outbreak roils Pence’s office
• Pence Defies Quarantine As White House Deems His Campaign Presence ‘Essential’ (In no way/shape/form is Pence “essential”; more like worthless.)
• Infection of Pence Aides Raises New Questions About Trump’s Virus Response
• Trump team just announced its surrender to the pandemic
• Biden Blasts Trump As U.S. COVID-19 Cases Mount And Pence Staff Endures Outbreak (“The United States in the past two days has registered its highest number of new COVID-19 cases – about 84,000 on Friday and about 79,900 on Saturday.”)
• White House admission on pandemic overshadows Trump’s last push for reelection (“White House admission the US cannot control the fast-worsening pandemic is taking focus off Trump’s frantic last-ditch bid to turn around his reelection race”)
• Biden Pledges Ambitious Climate Action. Here’s What He Could Actually Do.
• White House signals defeat in pandemic as outbreak roils Pence’s office (“With Nov. 3 just eight days away and coronavirus cases surging in many states, the outbreak around the vice president, who chairs the White House’s coronavirus task force, undermines the argument President Trump has been making to voters that the country is ’rounding the turn,’ as he put it at a rally Sunday in New Hampshire.” Seriously, not a single American should vote for this utterly incompetent administration from hell.)
• Pelosi Awaits Mnuchin Virus Offer Today as Hope for Vote Fades
• Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation jeopardizes more than abortion (“The threat to birth control — and in vitro fertilization — is increasingly plausible, especially in an America without Roe v. Wade.” 100% unacceptable, of course.)
• More Than 70 Science and Climate Journalists Challenge Supreme Court Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett (When it comes to climate, Barrett is an ignoramus and a disgrace.)
• Enlarging the Supreme Court is the only answer to the right’s judicial radicalism
• There is only one principled vote on Amy Coney Barrett: No
• This Is What It Feels Like to Live Under Minority Rule
• Juan Williams: Trump’s Supreme Court takeover
• Democrats hold Senate floor overnight to protest Amy Coney Barrett confirmation
• Senate cuts off debate on Barrett nomination, moves to final vote on Monday (Democrats are going to have to deal with the courts in 2021. What a mess.)
• Joe Biden makes the case for why he should be president
• The 60 Minutes interview that President Trump cut short
• Fact check: Trump makes at least 16 false or misleading claims to ‘60 Minutes’
• Biden flips script on Trump in campaign’s final week (“The president is scrambling. The challenger is not. It’s a jarring role reversal.”)
• 5 Things To Watch In The Final Week Of The 2020 Presidential Campaign
• Trump’s Army of Angry White Men (The worst people in America, for sure.)
• Biden: Trump’s view of suburbs is ‘not who we are’
• With a resounding victory, Democrats can protect us from the next Trump (“Maybe 2016 was a fluke. Maybe America isn’t so bad after all.”)
• Revealed: the full extent of Trump’s ‘meat cleaver’ assault on US wilderness (“After four years of Trump, protected places such as national monuments and wildlife refuges have opened to oil drilling, new maps show – with more on the way” This will all have to be reversed ASAP in a Biden administration. Utterly appalling, and 100% foreseeable by the way…)
• Young and progressive voters aren’t just ‘settling for Biden’ anymore. They’re going all in. (That’s the only rational choice.)
• Democrats brace for nail-biting finish to Senate battle
• Trump Had One Last Story to Sell. The Wall Street Journal Wouldn’t Buy It.
• Polls: Biden Enjoys Edge in Florida, North Carolina, Texas, and Is Tied in Georgia
• Biden looks very competitive in new Southern swing state polls
• AJC poll shows deadlocked races for president, Senate seats in Georgia
• The Two Americas Financing the Trump and Biden Campaigns
• Trump plans to fire heads of FBI, CIA and Pentagon if he wins re-election (That shows you how this guy’s completely f’ed-up mind works. VOTE HIM OUT!)
• Meet the ‘QAnon’ caucus: Conspiracy buffs on path to U.S. Congress (They’re Republicans, of COURSE!)
• Giuliani’s Crew of Misfits and Hucksters Storms Into the Hunter Biden Wars
• Trump, TV pundits don’t have a fracking clue about Pennsylvania and fossil fuels (When it comes to energy and climate issues, the vast majority of the media is utterly clueless, ignorant, wrong, etc. Massive #FAIL)
• Biden seeks to close any path for Trump win in race’s final days
• Early vote total exceeds 2016; GOP chips at Dems’ advantage (Very misleading headline; in fact, “On Oct. 15, Democrats registrants cast 51% of all ballots reported, compared with 25% from Republicans. On Sunday, Democrats had a slightly smaller lead, 51% to 31%.” Barely a difference, really.)
• Hillary Clinton: Most Republicans are “cowards” on Trump (Hillary Clinton is right yet again. She should have been president.)
• Biden Pulling Off a Strategy Clinton Couldn’t in 2016: Recreate Obama’s Map
• Harris to campaign in Texas, but Trump won’t visit before election
• How Texas went from low voter turnout to nation’s top early voting state (“Texas has never been a red state, it’s been a non-voting state…Now that it is voting, all bets are off. And if we do the work, if we continue to push, we will flip the state.”)
• Conservative News Sites Fuel Voter Fraud Misinformation (In short, if you watch, listen to or read conservative “news,” you will almost certainly be BADLY misinformed. The irony is that these lying liars claim to be telling the truth, which is truly…galling.)
• Our vote is going to Joe Biden (By the Topeka Capital-Journal)
• Arizona voters have Covid-19 top of mind. That could spell trouble for Trump. (“Biden holds a narrow lead, according to polls, aided by pandemic upheaval and demographic shifts years in the making. But don’t count the president out yet, some said.”)
• Facebook Prepares Measures for Possible Election Unrest
• Trump’s Election Fear-Mongering Backfires in Nevada
• Rep. Spanberger, Sen. Kaine campaign in Chesterfield
• Virginia Absentee Ballot Applications Heavily Favor a Very Good Day for Democrats on 11/3
• Video, Photos From the Republican Rally with Far-Right Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Amanda Chase, Nick Freitas, Daniel Gade, Kirk Cox, etc. (Disgusting all around…a constant stream of lies and extremism.)
• Spanberger and Freitas bring the heavyweights to Chesterfield (Except that Freitas’ “heavyweights” are crazy extremists Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, lol)
• After One of His Signs Is *Shot* 40 Times, VA01 Dem Qasim Rashid Calls for “Win[ning] with Justice and Compassion & Defeat[ing] Hate”
• Video: On MTP, Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA05) All But Disowns Being Part of “Cult of Personality”/Conspiracy Theory GOP
• GOP lawmaker: Republican appeals to QAnon supporters show “we’ve lost our way”
• Video: Republican Scott Taylor Absurdly/Obnoxiously Claims the Extremely Accomplished Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA02) Was “Graded on a Curve”
• You Can’t End Hunger in Virginia Without Providing Options, Report Says
• Virginia’s blue wave shows no sign of slowing ahead of key House races next week (“Voters’ opposition to Trump, and changing demographics in downstate suburbs, cement Democratic dominance in greater D.C. region.”)
• Thousands of Virginia prisoners could be released early under new earned sentence credit program
• 2020 was supposed to be a historic year for environmental funding in Virginia. Then came the pandemic.
• Fatally flawed or a ‘step in the right direction’? Democrats deeply divided on redistricting reform. (There’s nothing that the media loves more than the “Democrats divided” narrative…unless it’s “both sides” of course, lol.)
• Editorial: For Virginia colleges and universities, more adapting is to come
• Efforts on redistricting referendum near the finish line
• A Virginia state senator found headstones on his property. It brought to light a historic injustice in D.C.
• Appalachian schools seek solar reforms as region renegotiates utility contract (“Schools and governments in Southwest Virginia want solar policy to match new state law.”)
• Sunday (10/25) Virginia Data on COVID-19 Finds +999 Confirmed/Probable Cases (to 173,371), +35 Hospitalizations (to 12,233), +1 Deaths (to 3,579)
• Foy: Cable companies stand in way of rural broadband
• Editorial: Six different ways to ask the Confederate statue question
• Coronavirus’ impact on crime and courts varies across New River, Roanoke valleys
• Black Contractor Braves Threats to Remove Richmond Statues
• D.C.-area forecast: Clouds rule through Friday, with chance of soaking rain Thursday