Thursday News: “Trump bet against science, and voters are casting judgment”; “Finally, the Resistance Gets to Vote”; “We have to destroy the Republican Party in order to save it”; “No one mocks Trump like Barack Obama”; “The Most West Wing Moment…Ever”

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Thursday, October 29.

Seriously, this is the most West Wing moment I’ve ever seen in real life. Just brutal. pic.twitter.com/C2LeZefbZl

— Joshua Holland 🔥 (@JoshuaHol) October 29, 2020

• On Climate Change, We’re Entirely Out of Margin
• Russian labs are caught making illegal chemical weapons. Will Trump finally respond?
• Airbus Hopes to Be Flying Hydrogen-Powered Jetliners With Zero Carbon Emissions by 2035
• Detroit Knew: GM and Ford Were Aware of Climate Risks Decades Ago Too, Investigation Reveals (Should be criminal.)
• South Australia names hydrogen hubs to foster “epic” growth in wind and solar (Yep, that’s what we need – EPIC growth in clean energy, and an EPIC decline in planet-killing fossil fuels.)
• Trump and Biden on the biggest climate question: What kind of energy transition lies ahead? (“A historic energy transition is here: Coal is dying and oil will soon follow. How we manage this change is critical”)
• Factbox: On climate, it’s Biden’s green revolution versus Trump’s war on regulations (We are in dire need or a rapid transition to clean energy…it’s extremely urgent and should be the top priority, along with saving/revitalizing our democracy.)
• Trump bet against science, and voters are casting judgment (“White House’s delusions about its failed response to pandemic are consuming the President as tens of millions of Americans vote early”)
• Trump’s COVID Advisers: He’s Now Pushing Herd Immunity (Appalling.)
• U.S. markets fall sharply again, muddying Trump’s economic message before Election Day
• Election Day will feel different this year. Having the right expectations means rejecting Trump’s lies.
• No one mocks Trump like Barack Obama
• Why Obama saved his harshest critiques of Trump until the campaign’s end (“The former president, according to people close to him, sees his years of holding back on Trump as key to his ability to forcefully attack his successor on behalf of Joe Biden, his former running mate and the man running to unseat a President who has made sullying Obama’s legacy central to his political rise.”)
• Finally, the Resistance Gets to Vote(“Now is our chance to put an end to this presidency.”)
• Trump Killed the Pax Americana
• Trump’s Closing Argument on Virus Clashes With Science, and Voters’ Lives (This loser/scumbag literally deserved not a single minute of thought by any of us, and yet…ugh.)
• Four Wasted Years Thinking About Donald Trump
• How Will I Ever Look at America the Same Way Again? (“What I lost in the Trump years was a kind of innocence.”)
• Want Nonpartisan Court Reform? Add 4 Liberal Justices.
• Republicans’ only way to win is to stop people from voting
• The Supreme Court will not protect our voting rights. Here’s who actually might. (“As we make our way to the polls, either in-person or via mail, we need to remember that in addition to sending elected officials to Washington, D.C., we are voting for governors, state legislators, mayors and, in some states, judges.”)
• Supreme Court to Let Pennsylvania and North Carolina Accept Absentee Ballots After Election Day
• Kavanaugh tweaks voting opinion after Vermont official asks for correction (Maybe Brett-boy’s drinking too much beer? He does like beer, after all! LOL)
• Joe Biden knows that, in the end, voters want to feel good about their vote (“The Democratic presidential nominee offers a kinder, brighter future.”)
• Trump stumbles through final appeals to women as he vows to get their husbands back to work
• So what if Biden is up in the polls? Weren’t they wrong last time?
• Millions of mail ballots have not been returned as window closes for USPS delivery (“Election officials said many of the outstanding ballots may belong to those who requested them early but later decided to vote in person.”)
• Progressives and power: If Trump is defeated, the real fight begins (“With Amy Coney Barrett, the right won a huge victory. It will take focused, long-term activist power to defeat them” Agreed 100% – after this election, we need to continue our activism at the same level as during the Trump nightmare.)
• Jared Kushner, Peggy Noonan and White problems with Black ambition (“When you’re Black in America, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. You’re either shiftless or too ambitious. If you’re too ambitious, you better not for one moment show a sense of comfort in your own skin lest…”)
• Jared Kushner bragged in April that Trump was taking the country ‘back from the doctors’ (Well, at least we can see how Kushner fits into that horrid, evil family.)
• Trump’s Shittiest Surrogates Are His Own Children (and Jared) (“Eric and Junior, both hoping to inherit the presidency the same way they inherited the heap of debt and grift that is the Trump Organization, may not even be the worst of the lot.” Maybe not, but Eric and Junior are both evil incarnate.)
• ‘We Merely Need to Dampen Turnout’: Leaked Docs Show Top Trump Allies’ 2016 Plan to Suppress Black Voters
• Time is up for the racist know-nothingism of the GOP
• We have to destroy the Republican Party in order to save it
• Explosive early voting is already transforming our politics
• Officials Warn of Cyberattacks on Hospitals as Virus Cases Spike
• 5 fact-checks from the Senate’s hearing on social media
• We Have A Lot Of New Polls, But There’s Little Sign Of The Presidential Race Tightening (“Instead, Biden gains in the Midwest.”)
• CNN Poll: Biden continues to hold nationwide advantage in final days of 2020 race (“Among likely voters, 54% back Biden and 42% Trump. Biden has held a lead in every CNN poll on the matchup since 2019, and he has held a statistically significant advantage in every high-quality national poll since the spring.”)
• Was Joe Biden the Right Man for the Job After All? (Sure looks like it! The key was making this a *referendum* election on Trump, NOT a choice, and that’s what Biden has largely done.)
• The 13 Races That Will Determine Senate Majority
• Miles Taylor, a Former Homeland Security Official, Reveals He Was ‘Anonymous’
• New York Times, CNN sullied by ‘Anonymous’ charade
• “Anonymous” senior Trump official revealed as ex-DHS chief of staff Miles Taylor
• Why winning rural areas should be a progressive priority
• Girl Scouts deletes social media congratulations to Amy Coney Barrett on Supreme Court seat after angry backlash
• Another disturbing shooting of a Black man shows how desperately police need reform
• Unrest in Philadelphia after police kill a Black man roils the presidential campaign
• Democrats seek wave to bolster House majority
• Democrats Dream of Flipping Texas With Early Vote Exploding (Still tough, but possible.)
• ‘Quick, quick, quick’: Trump rushes McSally at rally as she fights to hold her Senate seat (Yikes.)
• McSally smears her opponent for caring about gun control after his wife was shot (She is truly odious.)
• Sen. Loeffler: ‘Not familiar’ with Access Hollywood tape (That alone should disqualify her. How can anyone sentient not have seen that video?)
• Jon Ossoff Calls Sen. David Perdue A ‘Crook’ To His Face In Heated Debate
• Tucker Suggests His Hunter Biden Dirt Was Intercepted in the Mail (Carlson is batshit.)
• A new study finds that Facebook is not censoring conservatives despite their repeated attacks (To the stark contrary: “Right-leaning pages consistently earn more interactions on Facebook than left-leaning pages”)
• Militia leader Stewart Rhodes says that his group will be at polling locations and is ready to kill Democrats
• Sen. Mark Warner Rips Trump Administration’s “Cynical and Concerted Effort to Bully Platforms Into Allowing Dark Money Groups, Right-Wing Militias…to Sow Disinformation…Suppress Voter Participation”
• Video: Elaine for Congress Launches Final Television Advertisement “Homecoming”
• Video: In New Ad, Spanberger Emphasizes Her Strong Record of Service to Her Country & Community
• Final Wason Center Virginia Poll of 2020 Election: Joe Biden/Kamala Harris +12 pts (53%-41%); Sen. Mark Warner +20 pts (57%-37%)
• Qasim Rashid: “At an NAACP rally on Saturday, I met a Trump supporter who accused Democrats of forcing socialism on America b/c we believe healthcare is a human right”
• Is Denver Riggleman still a Republican? He’s not sure. (Yep, he talked about that on Meet the Press this past Sunday.)
• Judge: Virginia can’t count some ballots without postmarks (“Requiring each ballot that does not have a postmark —through no fault of the voter —to be thrown out, regardless of when the ballot was actually mailed, risks disenfranchising Virginian voters.”)
• Police, criminal justice reform bills prompted by demonstrations set to become Virginia law
• Ban on chokeholds, no-knock warrants among bills Northam signed into law
• Governor Northam Signs Sweeping New Laws to Reform Policing in Virginia (“Measures ban no-knock warrants, strengthen officer decertification process, limit use of neck restraints”)
• Gov. Northam signs into law police reform bills inspired by George Floyd’s death in custody
• Va. voters are still requesting absentee ballots, even after the deadline passed. That’s created confusion, officials say.
• The Top Virginia Localities in Terms of Early Votes as a % of Registered Voters Are Overwhelmingly “Blue”; the Bottom Ones Are Overwhelmingly “Red”
• Video, Live Blog: Gov. Northam Press Conference at 1 pm
• Virginia Judge Clarifies Rules Around Late Mail-In Ballots
• Schapiro: Northam as judge, jury and executioner of VMI (Not sure about you, but I find Schapiro to be very difficult to read. Also, what’s with this click-baity, sensationalistic, obnoxious headline?)
• Wednesday (10/28) Virginia Data on COVID-19 Finds +1,345 Confirmed/Probable Cases (to 176,754), +64 Hospitalizations (to 12,384), +16 Deaths (to 3,616)
• Southwest Virginia is driving new COVID-19 cases but there are no plans for regional restrictions — for now
• As Southwest Va. cases rise, state officials discourage family gatherings flouting health precautions
• Northam considers restrictions in Southwest Virginia to slow virus
• In blue Northern Va., Democrats eye a mayoral seat long held by the GOP (“Manassas Mayor Harry J. Parrish (R) is not seeking reelection and Democrats hope to win the seat for the first time since the city’s incorporation.”)
• Editorial: Why is Roanoke’s virus rate spiking?
• Editorial: Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel expansion project takes shape at last
• Virginia Democratic Party and Richmond election officials working to resolve dispute over voter list (Showalter sounds like a piece of work.)
• Editorial: RPD chief should release the names
• Fairfax supervisors move forward with removal of Confederate imagery
• Fairfax County Seeks to Get Ahead of Voter Intimidation Concerns
• Fired Portsmouth city attorney sues mayor for defamation as Confederate monument saga continues
• Zeta unloads drenching rain today, but weather turns sunny and crisp for Halloween